Northern Star
by Shadowxwolf
Summary: Before the dragon shared his heart with Einon and was named Draco by Bowen, he had a mate and a clutch of his own. But, as with many things, man destroyed what he had...
1. Nomad

I'm sorry if this story is a bit slow to start with, I promise it will get better. This is Draco's story before he met Bowen and shared his heart with Einon. Ever wondered what he was always brooding about in the film? What about his true name? All is revealed!

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Draco remembered it well as he sat by Bowen's fire.

The young dragon flew with the dawning sun behind him, lighting the thin wing membranes and the distant blue mountains that lay before him. He barrel-rolled in sheer delight, feeling the warmth of the sunlight on his back driving away the night-time chill, and he roared for no other reason than that he could.

And it was answered. Another dragon rose from the forest below, almost as dark as the green foliage, and of lighter build than him. It flew straight up with a speed that startled the newcomer; he banked to the left to avoid the green's fangs.

'Who dares invade my skies?' came the challenge; the green was female. A fireball nearly shot the young dragon from the sky.

'My name is Hanorh,' the copper replied, at once fearing and admiring the drakka's flying. 'I'm a vagrant.'

'It was a rhetorical question,' the drakka growled, spinning on a wingtip to attack Hanor again, trying to knock him out of the sky. But the copper rolled over and dodged the green's claws.

'And what is your name?' he called to the drakka as she turned to attack again.

'You must earn my name,' she replied, almost coyly.

It became a chasing dance over the forests and the blue veins of rivers that ran through them. Sometimes the drakka would try to attack to maim, more often she would ploy and merely bank away at the last second, rolling away in a way that captivated Hanorh. Always she herded the drake away towards the distant mountains. Sometimes the drake would remark on the beauty of her flight, or the way the sun gleamed on her scales, which was returned with streams of fire from the green female. Then as dusk fell and fog rolled in beneath the two dragons, the green sank into it, disappearing so effectively that Hanorh didn't even notice. He turned and made to follow, but lost all sense of direction as the fog became denser. So instead, the copper landed by a small stream, and decided to wait until the fog lifted. The drakka had chased him from her territory, but had entranced him, and he determined to find her again, and make her his mate. He settled down on the pebbled bank, sleeping with one eye open for the elusive drakka or anything that might think of harming him.

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Aurha woke to birdsong and golden sunlight streaming into the mouth of her cave. Its walls glittered, glittering with thousands of gemstones that would be precious to men if they ever found the cave. The drakka did not intend for that to happen; men were nothing but trouble. She stretched and strode out to the ledge from which she could see everything of the surrounding countryside. The final tendrils of mist were retreating into shadow; no clouds gathered on the horizon – but what was that down in the valley? The drake from the day before, scouring the land for something, food, maybe? Or perhaps he was after her? The very thought made Aurha bristle with annoyance. 

She chose to ignore him; unless he made a kill in her territory there was not much point in wasting energy. The drakka descended to a nearby river for a morning drink, revelling in the coolness of the crystalline water as it trickled down her throat. A gushing of wing beats made her look up.

Hanorh landed on the opposite side of the river.

'Why are you still here?' Aurha asked grumpily.

'I want to know your name, drakka,' the copper replied.

'You have not earned it, so I'm not going to tell you it.'

'How will I do that then?' he asked

'You won't.' with a great sweep of her wings the drakka took off, soaring into the sky as she had the day before. Hanorh followed a second later, trying to gain the height she had already achieved.

Aurha looked behind and below her and saw the drake following closely. This was so annoying! She swerved left and right, climbed and dipped, and all the while he stuck to her, his eyes never leaving her, trying to predict her movements.

'You're agile enough,' the green muttered, 'but are you fast?' Her wing strokes increased and she climbed higher and faster, trying to dislodge the drake from her trail. He fell behind, but did not give up.

After three days of this, both dragons were exhausted. Sometimes Aurha had turned and stalked Hanorh instead, and sometimes they just pranced around each other, neither pursuing the other, and revelled instead in the glory of each other's movements. Aurha began to admire her suitor's determination. Usually they gave up long before now.

'Am I worthy of your name yet, my lady?' he would call every now and then.

'Not yet!' she replied, laughing and spinning away into some other sequence that would take his breath away.

They landed together in a large clearing many miles from where they had started their dance. Night had fallen long ago and the green was hardly distinguishable from the dark forest around her. The sounds of crickets and other night-time creatures came in restful waves to the dragons' ears.

'The stars are shining brightly tonight,' the drakka said, looking at the sky, and one constellation in particular. Hanorh looked too. He could see the starlight reflected in the female's eyes, making her even more mysterious and beautiful.

She lay down where she was, curling her tail around slender legs hard with muscle.

'Do I have your name yet?' Hanorh asked. The drakka merely smiled and went to sleep.

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So, did you guess? Hanorh is Draco's true name. I was trying to get something more easily pronounced in Drakine than english, and I might have achieved this...review and tell me what you honestly think! 


	2. Aislinn

So this is chapter two of 'So Shine the Stars' which is an absolutely terrible title - please, if anyone has any better ideas, I would _love _to hear them. Once again i apologise for the general crappiness of this, it _will_ get better!!!!!!!!

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**Review replies:**

**Tallacus:** I'm so glad you like it, and yes, I have read Dragon Chapmpion - it has pride of place on my bookshelf - but have not had the pleasure of reading the other two books (that I know of)

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There was singing through the trees. It was early, with the sky only just turning from the pinkish dawn to the pale blue that would cover it for the rest of the day. The drakka looked up to see a pair of crows flying west, and then turned to the clearing she had spent the night in. by daylight it was beautiful. Bluebells peered from under the conifers, and moss crawled along the fallen log in the centre of the glade. Next to her, the drake that had followed her for three days lay, still sleeping, having sidled close to her side sometime in the night. The drakka rolled her eyes. _Males._

But it was the singing that drew her attention now. It was Gaelic, a song of old heroes woven in voice patterns like the very decorations that adorned their buildings. It was a woman singing. As silent as a cat the green dragon crept through the woods.

'Aislinn,' the green said in surprise, recognising the daughter of the Celtic clan chief.

'Who is there?' the young girl asked the trees, looking alarmed.

'Do not worry, daughter of Celts, I do not wish you harm.' The drakka did not fear those whose people called her kind friend. She strode forward with confidence. 'Your song is sad today,' she commented, coming to sit beside Aislinn on the soft earth.

'It has reason to be, _Arach_,' the girl replied, 'My father has promised me to king Freyne of the Saxons.'

'Why?' the dragon asked, genuinely curious.

'To make a blood tie between our two peoples – if he does not, King Freyne might decide to destroy my people.'

'Why?' the drakka asked again. The ways of men were completely strange and petty, it seemed.

'Because he can, and we worship the old powers, instead of the new God brought by the Romans.'

The drakka snorted in disgust. 'Yours is the only race on this earth that kills itself for something as silly as believing something different,' she said. 'If it were the same with dragons, there would be none of us left! I do not understand human ways.'

'Then thank the Gods you are not human, _Arach_, because females like us have barely any choice in life. I do not wish to marry Freyne.'

A sudden realisation came upon the green. 'Freyne? He is a dragon slayer. I knew many who have fallen to his axe.' It was true, and the drakka had to suppress the fire boiling inside her for all her lost kin.

Hanorh jolted awake. The female was gone.

'Not again!' he groaned. His flight muscles were stiff from all the flying, and though he had no doubt the green could take wing after so short a rest, but he doubted if he could ever fly again. 'Ow.' Scratch the wing muscles – everything was sore.

Voices drifted through the trees. One was human, the other? Well, he couldn't be sure. The drakka's footprints led in that general direction, and Hanorh realised that she hadn't flown off at all. Thank God. He follwed the footprints and the female's scent until he came upon her talking with a young human robed in white. A twig snapped and the drakka's head snaked round.

'Oh, you're awake, are you?'

'And moving, to my great surprise,' he retorted. Was that a smile playing on the green's lips?

'Why are you moving, if it pains you so much?' she asked archly, surveying him up and down.

'Because I still don't know your name,' he replied. Now that was a smile.

'Do you know, of all the males who have sought me, not one of them lasted as long as I in the air? You are the first, and as such, I think you can have my name.' She rose, gracefully, like a leopard, and whispered her name in his ear. '_Aurha.'_

_Aurha._ Its meaning was 'northern forest' in drakine, and it suited the green female perfectly.

But the moment was long over. The drakka had turned to talk to the young woman again, in the human tongue. Hanorh only knew fragments of it, but Aurha spoke fluently, as if it was another dragon she spoke to. He would definitely have her teach him.

'Who is he?' Aislinn asked.

'A drake who followed me all the way down from the mountain,' the Aurha replied.

A voice called Aislinn's name through the forest. The dragons froze. The voice was male.

'It is my escort, John,' she explained, 'I slipped away from him and he must have come looking for me.'

'Then we will go,' Aurha decided, 'The fewer humans see us, the better.' Aislinn watched the two dragons melt into their surroundings as easily as shadows, and, still feeling sorry for herself, went to meet John before he could accidentally stumble across them.

'Who was that?' Hanorh asked. 'And where did you learn to speak the human tongue?'

'The human tongue? There are many of those. I know only Gaelic and a little Saxon. An old Celt priest taught me. As to the girl, she is a daughter of our friends, who has a dark future. She will marry a dragonslayer before the next new moon.' The drakka seemed saddened by this, from what the male could tell; being bigger than her it was harder to wind his way between the trees. 'Are you ready to fly again?' she asked suddenly, spreading her wings. Hanorh groaned.


	3. Stories and Stars

This is the third chapter of So Shine The Stars, now Northern Star because the title was, in my opinion, rubbish. Because it's been so long, and because it's Christmas, I'm giving you all a treat of two chapters. This is the first of them.

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'You know, you are a very good flier – for a male,' Aurha called as she flew loops over the drake. Hanorh was barely able to remain airborne, let alone perform the acrobatics she managed with perfect grace.

'You seem weightless,' he called back, admiring the way her scales sparkled in the sun. She laughed, barrel rolling again.

'I've had practice, drake,' she said. 'I could fly to the moon and back if I felt like it.'

'I'm sure you could.'

'No, I couldn't,' she replied, suddenly serious, 'there's no air up there. I flew high once, very high, but blacked out before I reached the moon.' She brightened again, quick as lightning, swirling in the air as though she was nothing more than an autumn leaf caught in a breeze. But she was in perfect control. Hanorh could not stop watching the drakka as she swooped and rolled perfectly.

'Where are you headed? What land did you come from?' she asked, flying closer to him. Hanorh suddenly was short of breath.

'I came from the north – Scotland, I think the humans call it. I was headed over the ocean, to the continent, to find a mate and my own hunting grounds.' He did not need to mention that at a certain age every drake was chased away by the dominant male. Every dragon knew that.

'How did you become so good?' he asked, enraptured, as she got bored again with merely flying in a straight line.

'My father,' she replied, 'he taught all my brothers aerial combat, so they could protect their mates, and I wanted to learn too.' Aurha laughed again. The sound was like the powerful rumbling of thunder, but light, like raindrops on water.

The two dragons soared together in silence for a while, until Hanorh broke it.

'Speaking of mates,' he started uncomfortably, as though they had never stopped talking, 'As soon as I saw you, I was enchanted. The way you fly, and the way the sun glints on your scales, enthralled me. I would like to be your champion, Aurha; to court you, if I may?' His stomach clenched painfully as she seemed to consider it; her muscles tensed as if to fly away. 'Just, please do make me chase you again.'

'Why not?'

'Because I will do it, though it would probably kill me.'

She smiled warmly. 'Good answer, drake. Hanorh, my champion,' she whispered, rolling the words on her tongue. She smiled again. 'Very well, Hanorh, copper drake of the North, you may court me as long as I wish you to. If I change my mind, start flying – fast.'

Aurha grinned, tilting her wing to bank over to Hanorh's other side. He wanted to roar joyfully at the heavens, to flame and fly to the moon and back, so happy was he that Aurha was going to let him stay. Just being in her presence made him light-headed.

'Please stop that,' he said with mock irritation.

'Why?'

'You're making me nauseous.'

'Ha!' A puff of flame escaped from her nostrils, forming a dark cloud behind them both; she rolled again, and took his talons in hers, pulling him along with effortless grace. 'Come,' she growled. 'Let me show you something.'

They alighted on a ledge far above the forest, on the precipice of a towering granite cliff. Hanorh could see everything in front of him, and only the sheer mountainside behind him stopped him seeing all on that side as well. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

'I wake up to this view every sunrise,' Aurha informed him. She led the drake round a large boulder partially eroded from the hillside, which covered the entrance to a cave. It glittered in the sunlight, and as the dragons entered, sun bounced off their scales as well, throwing the walls into a confused dance of shimmering colours. The narrow tunnel widened in no time at all, and what appeared instead was a great cavern speckled with hundreds upon hundreds of gemstones peeking from the rock. Where the water had carved channels, huge stalactites and ribs of stone poked like jagged teeth from the floor.

'Do you like it?' the drakka asked her new mate, watching his reaction carefully. 'If men knew of this place they would come here and steal its wonder, like they will all else in the world.'

'Who told you that?' Hanorh asked. 'this place is too perfect for anything to ruin.'

'My father told me men are now like time itself, only they work faster to level forests and build mountains. He said they would only grow worse as ages pass, and would eventually bring death to the whole world.' She was suddenly sad, and the drake was wounded to see her so.

'Your father must have been wise, but men are only animals, like us, even. What can they do to the world?' he moved closer to comfort her, but she glanced up fiercely, saying that men were already slaying dragons.

'And what creature on earth does not know that the dragons are tied with it? Only they do not seem to realise that if we die out, the world will die with us, and all futures will be lost. Only men.' Aurha's eyes had gone glassy, taking on a faraway look filled with a beautiful sadness. Hanorh wanted to comfort her but did not see how, so he told her to wait while he hunted for her.

'And I promise you this, dear one: no man may so much as scratch your hide wile I still breathe,' he said defiantly, baring his teeth at the thought. Aurha smiled.

The sun had long since dipped beneath the horizon by the time Hanorh returned, two limp deer clutched in his talons. He almost missed Aurha as he landed, so dark was her hide. She was gazing, unmoving, at the sky, watching the slow wheel of constellations through the heavens; her tail curled away and over the ledge and she seemed completely relaxed. She made no indication that she knew Hanorh was there. He laid one of the carcasses gently down at her feet.

'Don't the stars shine brightly tonight?' she sighed. The copper lay down beside her, feeling the warmth seeping from under her skin. 'Yes,' he replied. 'do you see the patterns in some of them?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'Men put stories and names to them; my mother told me something about them. Would you like to hear?' the green's headed snaked round ever so slowly; her eyes glowed like cats' in the dark, alight with interest.

'I would like that very much,' she whispered.

So the copper dredged his memory for all the stories he had ever heard about the stars – Orion, The Hunter; the Great Bear; the astrological signs humans studied so closely. He told his mate stories about human heroes and their gods, of great deeds long forgotten. It was a long time until she fell asleep with her head resting ever so gently in his claws, breathing deeply. He blinked in surprise and bent his head down to breathe in her sweet scent, feeling oddly protective for the first time in his life. It was with contentment that he looked to the east and saw the morning star vanish in the pale light of dawn.

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So there it is, the third chpter. Please review it, because otherwise I will see no point in continuing with the story. I will keep going for one reader, becuase it wouldn't be fair on them, but you need to review if you think other people are going to do it. Kay I'll see you in thirty seconds with the second installation, chou!

Shadowxwolf


	4. Intruder

Fourth chapter then of Northern Star, not much else to say, really, but I hope you enjoy, and I will try to get the next chapter up soon!

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Autumn had settled firmly over the land. Gold, red and orange leaves swirled in eddies of northerly wind, telling the creatures it was time to prepare for the coming months of cold and dark. The only creatures who were not worried about winter were two dragons who soared above the turning forest, playing in the sweeping air currents coming from the high mountains. They chased each other through the air, diving and rolling and turning at a thought's whim and the dip of a leathery wing, revelling in the freedom that was their birthright. Maybe they would have had a little more concern, but they were courting.

By day the copper male, Hanorh, would try and impress his mate Aurha in any way he could think of – trying to carry large boulders to the heavens or hunting for wild boar among the trees. He spouted great plumes of fire into the vast blue sky to try and prove himself worthy of her. And all the while she would swoop and laugh and perform aerial acrobatics that the drake could never hope to achieve. She was like a leaf herself, caught on a breeze, but always in control of it.

At night they would lie together and watch the stars turn in the sky, swapping stories about dragons or men or their own pasts. Aurha taught her mate human languages, and about their strange ways, and he would sing dragon fables to her, and stories of long forgotten heroes and the human knights of Camelot. When dawn broke, the pattern would start all over again.

One morning, dawn brought a speck on the horizon, growing steadily larger as the sun rose higher.

'Look at that, dear one,' Hanorh said when he spotted it first. 'What do you suppose it is?' his mate's eyes were more sensitive, though, and she couldn't look into the sun. She tested the air, lips rising over sharp fangs. 'dragon,' she snarled.

'I will go and drive him off,' Hanorh soothed. 'Stay here.'

Aurha rounded on him, showing her teeth. 'Why must I? Were these not my skies before yours? I will drive him away. I will not sit here like a helpless human female. I am a dragon.' And she spread her green wings wide and sprang into the air, dropping like a falcon before rising to meet the intruder. Hanorh took off as well, following a more direct path.

This dragon was grey, with a blue tint to his scales, like a deep lake in winter. Muscle bunched on his large frame, and many scars crisscrossed his hide. Hanorh realised with cold dread that Aurha would never stand a chance against him if it came to fighting.

The green drakka let a spew of lame fly from her lips. 'Who are you to invade my skies?' she roared in challenge. The grey drake considered the question, and altered direction to fly towards her. Hanorh flew on with a new urgency, but the drake didn't see him.

'My name is merely Skyar, oh jewel of the skies,' he purred, rubbing his wingtip against hers. She snarled and let loose a jet of flame to separate them both. She was reluctant to fight, because Skyar was almost twice her size; but bulky and cumbersome with his strength. 'I seek a mate and territory of my own,' he growled trying to fly close again. Aurha flipped and flashed her talons at him to warn him to keep away, but he pursued anyway.

'You will find neither here, drake!' she snarled, flying around him. He blocked, herding her away from the relative safety of the cave, further from Hanorh, who was gaining height to attack. A great fury had welled inside him when he saw the drake rub Aurha's wingtip. 'Hold on, my love,' he whispered desperately as he manoeuvred.

Below, Skyar was blocking the drakka whichever way she tried to fly. She was flying as hard as she could, changing direction and swerving every way she could think of, but it did no good. The grey dragon's sheer size was a barrier.

'I think I would like it here,' he was saying, blocking yet again. She turned to strike, drawing blood, but it made no difference. Skyar didn't even seem to notice.

'As I told you, drake, these are my skies, and you will not find what you seek here.' She bit again, and bit deep, but it only brought the two dragons closer together.

'Why not?' he asked blandly. 'This is a fine place, and you are a drakka. I have found both things I seek.'

'I have a mate,' Aurha growled proudly, 'A brilliant copper who flies better than you shall ever do!' and she dived, slashing at the grey drake's face with her tail, raking her claws through the softer skin on his belly. The grey roared in agony and anger. No longer were there thoughts of mating in his head. He wanted to kill this disrespectful drakka.

'If you have a mate, where is he?' he roared, powerful wingstrokes pumping him closer to Aurha, who was now flying for her life. She dodged and ducked his fire, swerving with all her strength to avoid the murderous dragon. She turned and flew straight for him, flaming to hide herself, slashing once more at his face. But the drake was expecting it, and rolled, his talons cutting into the drakka's side. Aurha cried out in pain, and at that moment, Hanorh struck.

He shot from the sky like a meteorite, tearing into the grey's side with all the strength that came from the fierce will to defend Aurha, to protect her from all harm. The grey turned, but Hanorh's teeth were already latched on his neck, slashing and tearing in blind rage. They were falling, falling towards the earth.

Suddenly Skyar hooked claws into Hanorh's flesh and threw him off and tumbling through the sky. They met again, the grey and the copper half his size, clawing and biting each other. The larger's wings carried them both through the sky, but he was heading for the ground with Hanorh caught in a vice-like grip. He was going to plough the copper drake into the ground, even as lacerations bore the grey's innards to the sky.

Suddenly Aurha appeared to defend her mate, tearing not at the head or neck, but at Skyar's wings. She bled from a wound in her side, but rage fuelled her on. She bit clean through the joint of one, and slashed the membrane of the other. His flight became erratic and desperate, and he let go of Hanorh to try and claw his way into the sky.

But in vain. Skyar plunged like a stone from the sky, landing on his back on the forest floor with an impact that could be heard for leagues. He was dead. Even as Aurha watched, his carcass caught with the fire still inside him, and the grey burned quickly, leaving only charred ashes where he had fallen. The drakka landed next to Hanorh, who had gone down in only slightly less chaos, and now lay heavily on his side, weak from a gash in his shoulder.

'Oh, my love,' she whispered, padding over to lie beside him. He was struggling to rise, and she hushed him down. 'Do not move, my love, you have lost a lot of blood.'

'You bleed too,' Hanorh replied, struggling again.

'A mere scratch,' she assured him. 'Rest.' She licked his wound tenderly and it began to heal, thanks to the knitting chemicals in her saliva. 'You fought for me today,' she murmured. 'You almost gave your life.'

'I could not let him hurt you, Aurha,' Hanorh replied weakly.

'Why did you not come sooner?' she asked curiously.

'I saw falcons dive after prey, how high they go,' he explained. 'I knew he was bigger than me, so I had to go in fast. He was just more solid than I first thought.' He chuckled darkly, but it transformed to coughing. He shuddered and slept.

Aurha watched over his still form as the stars crept overhead, and eventually a half moon, brightening the clearing in which the two dragons rested. The great constellation Draco reared in the night sky, and the drakka growled softly to herself.

'No, you shall not have him yet, Rheshrah,' she murmured.

It was nearly a week before Hanorh was fit to fly, and then, only to the cave. Aurha flew steadily beside him, as if knowing that he could not cope with anything else. She flew slightly below him, her wingtip touching his flank gently with every stroke.

'My champion,' she purred, and the drake smiled lovingly back at her and nuzzled closer. Gradually they flew higher and higher, their gazes locked, circling. The rose until frost grew on their wings and the air grew thin, and still they circled, climbing one above the other until they could go no further. The circle grew tighter and tighter, as though they were chasing each other's tails, and then their own, as Aurha flew under Hanorh.

Suddenly she flipped and grasped Hanorh's talons in her own and together they plummeted, wings locked tight to their bodies, tails entwined. They fell together through all the layers of air, passed through clouds in the blink of an eye, the ground speeding to meet them so fast they couldn't breathe.

At the last second they split apart, opening their wings like parachutes to carry them on their own winds through the denser layers of air.

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So how about that, this drakka has claws! Well, I couldn't have her being a damsel in distress, could I?

Please review!

Shadowxwolf


	5. Storm Coming

You guys kept this story alive! Thanks for all the reviews! Here is chapter five, inspired by the frankly crap weather I've been having. And i thought Aislinn should have a few more words to say.

So here it is, hope you like!

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The protection of the trees was welcome after the harsh and biting wind ripping through from the north. It had grown even colder into late autumn, and the final dregs of fiery leaves were leaving go of their grips on the branches of beech and birch and rowan. Although a creature of air, Aurha was also an animal of fire, and she didn't care for the bare trees or the snow she could smell on the horizon, not a day away. The gale above had become so strong she had struggled to ride the currents, and was forced to drop to the ground. It made hunting even more awkward than it was already.

At the onset of winter, many animals had gone into hiding amongst the deep thickets. In the last week she and Hanorh had hunted separately, ranging far and wide in search of scarce prey, avoiding the tempting target of livestock in nearby valleys. All the green drakka had eaten in the past week were a few scrawny rabbits, and pickings would only get slimmer as the winter progressed. The birds had flown south, and Aurha desperately wished to join them, but leaving her territory would leave it open for other dragons, and a fight would break out if she wanted it back. Nature warned against battle, and so, the dragons stayed.

Leaves swept lazily past Aurha as she stalked like a cat through the silent forest, alert to the slightest sound of prey. She looked to the stormy sky and hoped that her mate was all right, and fared better than she. He had not fully recovered from his fight with the rival drake, Skyar. It had left marks on her too, deep scars that would always mar her left flank.

There was a sound on the wind, drowned by the trees, but Aurha caught it with her sharp dragon ears. Human singing. The voice sounded familiar, and the green followed it to a clearing. Aislinn was there, singing soft melodies to herself by a stream, her horse tethered to a tree not far away. It whinnied in alarm when it smelled the dragon lingering in shadows. Aislinn looked up too, drawing a short dagger from a sheath bound on her hip.

'Who is there?' she called.

'Still, Daughter of the Celts, it is only I,' replied Aurha calmly, pacing into the middle of the clearing, ignoring the plaintive cries of the bay mare.

'You startled me, my lady,' Aislinn said, sheathing the dagger. The dragon noted with a deep scowl that the carved handle was made of dragon horn.

'Why are you out here in the wild so late in the year, Aislinn?'

'To think,' she replied. 'It is harder than I thought it would be to live with Freyne. He cares for nothing and believes in nobody but himself.'

Aurha listened patiently to all her friend said, wondering what it would be like to live like Aislinn. It had nearly come to pass; the grey drake Skyar would have killed her if Hanorh hadn't come to her aid. Aislinn had no champion so strong, and she was sorry for it. 'It is cold,' she said finally, moving closer to the young woman to share her warmth.

'It is,' Aislinn admitted. 'The snows will come soon.'

'In a day or so, then things will be even harder for us.' Aurha was looking again at the sky, even darker than before, her face creased with concern for Hanorh's safety.

'What is this cut?' Aislinn asked, tracing the line of Skyar's claws with her delicate hand.

'Nothing to worry about,' the drakka assured. She had suddenly noticed something about Aislinn: her shape had changed. 'You are with child,' she observed with a little surprise. She had suddenly noticed more the stirrings in her own belly.

'Yes,' Aislinn replied sadly. 'The first child of King Freyne of the Saxons. His lineage is secure, and when his son is born, he will teach him how he rules, and I fear he will grow into a tyrant like his father.'

'There will be hope for him if he is taught the Old Code,' Aurha suggested. Aislinn shook her head.

'The king has no time for the Old Code, he says he is above it.' A growl rumbled in the green's chest. Nobody was above the Code, especially the not the king.

The two sat in silence for a while, each gripped by their own thoughts. The wind struck mournful notes of song through the trees, carrying away warmth and the last of autumn's leaves. The message was clear: Winter was on its way, and it came on swift wings.

Aurha's stomach grumbled when she looked at Aislinn's mare, now still but covered in sweat. It smelled good and reminded the drakka of her hunger. She privately hoped that there would be territorial skirmishes between the humans, because battle meant carrion, which meant possibly the best source of food for the winter. In the past, during hard times, dragons had made pacts with human warlords, to fight in return for food. Several of these warlords had lost their lives for not honouring the deal.

A shape was moving against the shadows. Sometimes it caught the dull light and the glint of a scale flashed. The smell of a fresh kill whipped through the layers of air, filling Aurha's nostrils. She rose, ever cautious, her wings half-furled in readiness for flight or display. Then there was a laugh from the trees. A dull thud and a crack sounded as something heavy hit the floor and snapped a twig. Aislinn heard a series of low growls and groans, but the copper was speaking quietly to his mate.

'Do you not recognise me, Aurha?' he said. 'I would know _you _anywhere, my love.'

'The scent of blood, fogged my senses, my lord. Can I not leave you for five minutes without you getting injured?' she jibed coyly.

'Maybe I will eat this mountain goat all by myself,' he replied, stepping forward into the clearing, the prey hanging limply from his mouth.

Aislinn gasped at the copper drake. He was slightly bigger than the green, with a broader head and larger muscles, a larger spur on the end of his thick tail. But he was just as graceful as his mate, and looked just as lithe. His scales shone even I the dim light of the dark day, and the only thing that appeared wrong was a slight limp in one front leg.

Aurha purred with delight, and flowed like water to where Hanorh stood triumphant with his kill. They rubbed noses, emitting puffs of smoke and arching proud necks. Hanorh ran his muzzle with a low growl down his mate's neck and along to worriedly examine the scar on her flank. She nipped him to tell him not to worry. He frowned and turned to Aislinn who felt compelled to bow to such a creature.

'Greetings, lady human,' he addressed her in a deep, growling voice, with a strange accent. 'There are men looking for you in the woods to south, and I come to find my mate before they do.'

'Then I must go,' Aislinn said, suddenly worried. She would be punished for evading her guards. 'Farewell, my lady, and thank you for your company. And farewell to you also, my lord, who honours me by speaking my language so eloquently.' She mounted her horse and passed under the trees, towards where mens' voices could faintly be heard calling her name.

Aurha snuggled into her mate, eyeing the goat avidly.

'You were very well spoken my love,' she crooned.

He chuckled. 'Go on, I can tell you haven't eaten yet.'

'What about you?'

'There was a herd of them in the mountains, and I took one for myself. Do not worry, Aurha, I am well fed.' Well assured, Aurha snatched the dead goat from the ground and swallowed it in three huge bites. It filled and warmed her, but she knew it was only for a while, and she was getting hungrier these days. The thought darkened her face for a second.

'I wish the stars would shine tonight,' she whispered.

But the clouds came down and covered the mountains in thick, opaque fog, and for three days and nights (not that it was easy to tell the difference) It snowed heavily, confining the dragons to their glittering cave. They had collected and dried wood and flamed on it to keep themselves warm and give them light, a trick learned by Hanorh from his parents.

The drakka would sleep for most of the time to conserve energy, and when she awoke she would look too the dim cave entrance and sigh heavily. She missed the stars and skies, as all dragons do when cooped up, and she grimly wondered how long this storm would end. And it wasn't just for herself that she worried, gazing at Hanorh who slept beside her.

The two dragons woke early one morning to see an unusual light through the cave mouth. Sunlight was filtering through the dissipating cloud; the storm was over. They went to the cave mouth and the lip of the cliff to see the changed countryside. The ledge was layered with black ice and the dragons skidded and slipped despite their sharp claws digging into the rock.

The world below them was white. Trees were bowed down like the Greek god Atlas with the weight of snow piled on them, and everything was pristine, silent, and undisturbed. Aurha smiled at her mate as an unquenchable feeling of freedom stole over her. A wild instinct spread her wings to catch the cold currents of air and she lifted away, laughing at the sky. Hanorh followed, overcome with the same feeling, and together they plunged and dived in mock fights and play, showing each other the strength and suppleness of their wings, all troubles momentarily forgotten.

* * *

Who would have thought dragon fluff was possible. It's too nice. No, not really, I like writing this, I really do.

So, as usual, all reviews welcome, praise or criticism, as long as its nice, and if there are any suggestions as to where the story is going, I'd be happy to read them, chou!

Shadowxwolf


	6. Nature's Law

After alongish conversation with Tallacus, I though it best to just explain this now. For all of you who were wondering, yes, Aurha is pregnant, but no, she hasn't told Hanorh. This is because female dragons become very hormonal during pregnancy, and they revert to basic instincts which happens as Nature's way of protection. Solitude is safety, and other dragons are dangerous, in short.

Anyway, if you didn't understand that, or found really hard to believe, go with it, please? And review to tell me what you thought of it, if you like.

* * *

The weather grew steadily worse and whiter during the weeks following the first snow storm. Clouds would descend, thick and grey, to wrap the world in confusion, else the sun would sparkle so brightly that the dragons had great difficulty spotting the little prey that was not hibernating or had not roamed south with the sun. They could no longer land, fearing the discovery of their tracks in the deep snow; humans were roaming farther afield now as well.

Hanorh was worrying about his mate. They had to fly far each time they hunted, prey was so sparse, and it seemed to be telling on the green female. She was growing thinner and more drawn by the day, so much so that her ribs were just discernable beneath her scaly hide. No longer did she perform aerial acrobatics with ease or freedom of spirit, she didn't roll or dive at all.

Often the drake would ask what was wrong, but Aurha would just snap at him, or tell him to leave her alone. Then she would seem to come to, and apologise and nuzzle close to him with such anguish in his eyes that she would be instantly forgiven. But that was happening less and less.

Once, Aurha had left her mate and flown for days, returning more tired and haggard looking than ever. She trembled as she landed.

'Aurha,' Hanorh sighed in relief. He was always cautious around her now, but she came to him and touched his muzzle gratefully.

'Hanorh,' she whispered, drinking in his scent. She didn't want to fight with him, every fibre in her body hated it when she turned to her mate and showed her teeth. But his scent, usually comforting, had grown distant, like he was some stranger. Deep down she knew what was happening, but she could tell nobody, not even her beautiful mate, for it was Nature's deepest secret. The most basic of instincts took over, the one that decreed solitude was safety, and not even Aurha's higher brain functions could override her primary nature. Hanorh was another dragon, and was therefore dangerous, no matter how much Aurha screamed at herself that he would never, could never, harm her.

'I have been so worried, my love. Where were you?' The blissful spell was broken. Hanorh was once more the stranger.

'Flying,' the drakka replied coldly, stepping past him and into the cave. He sighed in confusion and frustration. What had he done this time? He knew better than to ask out loud.

The green was sitting inside, her features drawn.

'I am sorry, my love,' she said as he drew near. 'I do not know why this is happening. It goes against me.' She gazed up into his eyes, and he saw behind the riot of emotions the dark bestiality that she was battling to subdue. It was this fight that was exhausting her so. 'Come, sing to me. It will calm me.'

Hanorh lay down gently beside his mate, still confused, but willing. He stretched his wing over her back as she settled into him, and he wove her a song of high mountains and crisp nights and the freedom that only belonged to flying things. Soon she was settled and asleep, breathing soundly, without the cares of the waking world. The copper nuzzled her gently, feeling comfortable with her heat on his side, and laid his head next to hers. In the morning, he resolved to go out and find a fat cow or horse and bring it back for her.

When he returned, a large bullock clasped in his talons, Aurha was busy. Instinct was at work again, instructing her in what to do. She was stripping trees of their top branches, and then raking her claws over the bark so it tore away in strips. All of these she dragged back to the cave, barely able to lift the heavy logs but working with such fervour that Hanorh was astonished. He landed on the lip of the cliff. Before he could even open his mouth, Aurha warned him not to try and help.

'At least stop for a moment, and eat,' he insisted. She looked at him gratefully and plunged her long neck into the carcass of the carthorse, snatching greedily at lumps of bone and muscle.

'Thankyou, my love. Now, leave me to this task, it draws near,' she said tenderly. Hanorh knew to curb his curiosity and flew away to find something else to eat.

A few days later, when he returned with a fresh goat, he found Aurha lying on the pile of cinders she had made with the logs, breathing heavily. Her face was contorted with pain.

'Aurha!' her mate cried in distress, dropping his kill and rushing to her side.

'Hanorh?' she asked weakly.

'Yes, my love. I am here. What is wrong?'

'I hoped you would come in time.' She lapsed back into the spasms of pain with a small groan.

'In time for what? Aurha, are you dying?' Hanorh hated seeing his mate like this, and knowing he could do nothing. If she was –

'No, love, I am not dying. Not yet. But you need to leave. Now.' She turned to him, and there was that basic instinct again, beneath the agony twisting her gut.

'Aurha, I cannot leave you like this!' he cried, putting his snout next to hers. She snapped it away.

'You will, fool, for I shall not permit you to stay! You cannot see this Hanorh. It is Nature's oldest law.'

'I will not go!'

Aurha suddenly roared. It echoed her rage a hundredfold and bounced back off the cave walls until it sang in the dragons' ears. The copper was shocked, and unbidden, the memory of the day she had ripped Skyar's wing flashed back to him. Now she trembled and tottered on her feet, but she stood like a lioness defending her cubs.

'You. Shall. Leave.'

But Hanorh stood his ground and stared her down. He would not leave her to face whatever this was alone.

'Please,' she begged. He shook his head.

She exploded, darting forward with a primitive speed too fast to react to, and slashed her talons down Hanorh's foreleg, roaring like an inferno. She drove him back, back, out of the cave and to the lip with the ferocity of her attack. When she came to the cave mouth she halted, snarling furiously. The copper took the only option he could live with: he opened his wings and flew into the evening sky.

Aurha returned to the pile of ashes, exhausted. The confrontation had sapped her strength and horrified her. She cursed the duality inside her as it caused her another twinge of red hot agony. One thing consoled her. It would be finished with soon.

The day was overcast with the threat of a blizzard. In the northern mountains, avalanches crashed down the slopes as a young male dragon vent his fury upon the rocks. He bellowed and swiped at the rocks hating himself for leaving the thing most dear to him, his mate for making him choose this isolation, and the whole world for being so full of misery.

As the first flakes fell, the wind keened with Hanorh and called his name with despair. The dragon listened harder to the moaning wind. There was something faint in it. A scent, a voice curling in on itself and being lost and found again. He knew that voice. She was calling him back. He would answer her call wherever and whenever it came. But why? Aurha had snapped at him, struck him and drawn blood, and all without explanation. If she really wanted him to return, she could roam the skies to find him. Still, the mourning in that voice was unmistakable.

Aurha looked at the skies with a desperate hope in her eyes. It had been all her fault! She should have told her mate her secret, but it was impossible, he had been a stranger of her own imagining. That secret had been hers to protect, but now she needed Hanorh more than ever to ease the guilt spreading like a virus inside her. Was he lying somewhere, bleeding, because of what she'd done to him? The green longed to search the world for him, but a stronger instinct kept her at the mouth of the cave, like a dog on a leash. She put her muzzle to the stars once more and howled Hanorh's name, willing the winds to carry her voice to him, no matter where he was.

'What have I done?' she asked herself, turning back to the yawning mouth of the cave.

There were birds singing. The sun was watery bright on the cliff lip, scattered like ripples by something beating the air. The wingstrokes woke the sleeping drakka instantly, and she tested the air for danger. She knew that scent well; there was nothing to fear.

Hanorh was prepared for a fight this time. Part of him thought he had imagined the voice on the wind, but the other, stronger part needed to know if Aurha was all right.

She rushed out to him, but not in aggression, in relief and joy to see her mate again. They met as though they had not quarrelled, and had merely been separated for a century. Aurha smelled his scent and was comforted by its warmth and strength again, and the copper ran his head along his mate's neck and flanks to make sure she was fine. Her eyes were bright and clear again, and full of the playfulness he loved so much.

'Hanorh! Can you ever forgive me? I need you to forgive me, my love,' Aurha breathed, rubbing her head along his scales.

'Will you tell me the reason behind it?' the drake asked.

'No,' she replied playfully. 'You can see for yourself.'

Hanorh followed her inside, his curiosity was rising. It was barely two days and nights since Aurha had sliced his flesh, and yet here she was, like she always had been, as if a great burden was lifted from her wings.

'Forgive me, my love,' she murmured. 'I would have flown to find you, but I daren't leave the cave, not now.'

'Aurha, what are you -?' But the copper's voice died before it reached his lips. He was frozen. His mate laughed at him as she curled protectively around the little mound made in the ashes. Hanorh's neck arched proudly at the green lying there, wrapped around white spheres nestled in the charred branches. These had been the cause of Aurha's discomfort. Slowly, gently, he leaned in to count their eggs, feeling strange, like he never had before. He wanted to fly to the moon, over it, even, and drag down the stars as playthings for his children. Seven. Seven perfect eggs. He hesitantly touched each in turn, wondering at how fragile they were.

Aurha was watching him warily, the remnant of that protective spirit lingering over her brood. He knew the terrible revenge she would take if any one of them was even slightly damaged, and he knew he would do the same. They rubbed noses and purred with each other, supremely happy.

'Sing a lullaby for our children, Hanorh,' Aurha whispered, laying her head on the ashes next to the mound.

'They are only eggs, Aurha,' her mate replied steadily.

'And do you not remember your egg, my love? It is the world of dreams. They are not conscious, but know that they can hear you, even if not with their ears. Anyway, I want you to sing for me, my lord,' she said archly, staring blandly at him.

'Very well, my lady,' he replied, settling down beside her. But he didn't know what to sing. He was too happy for a tragic epic, but it seemed too serious for a ditty. Finally he settled for a human ballad Aurha had taught him, and tried to translate it into his mothertongue. When he was finished, Aurha was sleeping peacefully, as beautifully as the dawn, and he looked upon his little family with a fierce pride blossoming in his chest.

'In the morning, I will hunt for you,' he promised his slumbering mate.

* * *

WTF? Since when did I write fluff? Ah, well, nothing lasts forever. Review please.

Shadowxwolf


	7. Freyne's Court

Time for a change in perspective, I think, dragons and fluff all the time can become hellish to write, so here's Aislinn's side of the story for a while. please R&R!

* * *

The hall was grander than any other in the kingdom, hung with skins of wolves, bears, lynx; trophies from hunting expeditions, and tribute to the king to show his might to his lords. Freyne himself reclined on his gilded throne, the arm rests shaped like dragon heads and the seat upholstered with the scales of dragons slain at his leisure. He was bored. Listening to petitioners made his legs ache with sitting still, and for what? Tedious disputes over meagre spits of land? Sometimes he heeded them, if their gifts satisfied, and they called him wise king, noble king. But more often they left no better off than when they had come.

Aislinn sat beside her husband on a smaller seat, there only because of protocol, and wishing dearly she was somewhere else. She was pregnant, and very nearly due; she tried to ignore the twinging pains caused by the unborn baby moving inside her. The actions of her husband weighed heavily on her, and the dragonskin she sat on made her uncomfortable. If only she was with her own people!

The current petitioner was a peasant thinned by winter hardship. His rough tunic hung loosely about his shoulders, and hollows shadowed his cheeks.

'Sire,' he whimpered, prostrate before Freyne's dais, 'Sire there is a pestilence upon my village, a great demon that comes from above.'

'Get to the point,' Freyne said tiredly.

'A dragon, sire!' the peasant cried dramatically. 'Swooping over the herds of my village! Sire, I bring you the humble offering of or best milk-cow for you to kill this beast that plagues us.'

Already Aislinn was sceptical. She whispered in the king's ear.

She was a useful asset in his court, although Freyne did not like to admit it; a good judge of character, and wise in council, when he deigned to listen.

'How many of your cows has this dragon taken?' Freyne asked, repeating the words of his queen.

'Five of my best milk cows and two strapping yearlings, Sire.' Aislinn highly doubted that. Not even a mountain goat could escape a healthy dragon's claws.

'And what is it you would wish of your king? They snows are still deep, and as yet the beast seems not to be troubling the kingdom,' Freyne said lazily. Aislinn disliked her husband calling dragons 'beasts', dragons who were far more intelligent and wiser than humans could ever hope to be.

'But Sire, my cows –'

'are I am sure under no more threat from a dragon than other hunters, yeoman,' the king cut him off.

The peasant seemed desperate. He glanced at the guards standing either side of Freyne's throne, and at the other petitioners as he spluttered on the floor.

Freyne motioned to his guards to remove the peasant from his sight, looking royally bored. The stick-thin man couldn't put up much of a fight against well-fed palace attendants, but he did manage to cry out something about the dragon being a servant of the poor who wished to revolt against their king. This made both the monarch and his cohort sit with straighter backs. Freyne because he always feared rebellion, Aislinn because she knew what would happen to the green and her mate if the king believed this true.

Freyne made a decision.

'There will be no more petitions today,' a chamberlain cried as guards herded the commoners out of the throne room. The courtiers left as well, shepherded out with mutinous grumblings they were careful to keep below everyone's hearing but their own.

Aislinn made to leave with them, thinking the king wished his own counsel, but he commanded her to stay.

'My lord?' she asked in confusion.

'Your people, backward as they are, know more about dragons than most,' he explained, pacing his hall. 'I wish for your opinion before I proceed with any action.'

Aislinn wasn't that surprised. He was many things, bloodthirsty and power hungry, but not stupid.

'My lord, everything that peasant said was false to some degree. They will not steal livestock unless starving – it was probably a wolf or a bear that took those animals, and I am not sure they were as healthy as he suggested.'

'My thoughts also,' Freyne replied. Bt what of this tale of an alliance?'

'Dragons stay away from the affairs of men,' she replied simply.

'Very well, you may go.'

Aislinn walked briskly away from the hall, her thoughts whirling. Freyne had been pacified for now; he wouldn't waste energy pursuing something that could so easily outdistance or outfight him. But the villagers she wasn't so sure about. Once the peasants got something into their heads, it was difficult to dislodge it. If they thought a dragon was killing their animals or causing disease (impossible), they would not stop until its head was on a spike outside their gates.

And the yeoman had said dragon. Not dragons. There should be two. What had happened to the other, or was it simply that the man hadn't been able to tell the difference between the two? The thought prodded at her, and allowed her no rest, so early next morning she ordered her horse to be prepared.

'Where are you off to, my dear?' Freyne asked silkily as her mare was led to the mounting block.

'Just for a walk in the fresh air, my lord. I could not sleep last night.'

'Would it have anything to do with that dragon?' he asked nonchalantly, masking a dangerous threat. 'Or would you words about loyalty be a lie, and you conspire with these peasants and their dragon against me?'

'No my lord. Neither would I betray you, nor a dragon tangle himself up in the doings of humans. In fact, I was planning on going to see my father. My time is near, and tradition dictates that I bear my first child at least, among my own people.' Aislinn had made that up, but it couldn't hurt.

'You were going to ride alone through the woods at this time of year? Nonsense,' the king cried. 'You shall have the carriage, and I shall come with you. If this is what you require, well then. . .' He pressed a hand gently to her swollen belly with a smile that made her shiver. She could never love him, and he did not love her, only needed her for the unborn babe growing in the warmth.

* * *

It was settled and they set out that very morning, making the Celtic encampment by dusk. Aislinn breathed a quiet sigh of relief to be back home, but all Freyne could think of was was the primitiveness of the dwellings, the vulgarity of half-naked warriors painted blue, and the prettiness of the women he longed to seduce. They all turned their faces away in dislike.

The carriage halted outside the largest and grandest of the buildings, the wood carved with a multitude of symbols detestable to Freyne and his religion. A servant helped Aislinn to alight the step into the mud, and she tottered slightly as another twinge of pain twitched in her womb. A tall man, with greying beard and beads and feathers weaved into his long, sparse hair, came out to greet them, the arms of his pearly robe spread wide.

'Failte,' he said warmly, in his native tongue. 'What joy it is to see such friends as these. And my daughter, returned to me for a visit. It makes my old heart fill.' He exchanged a few words with Aislinn in their own language, and nodded knowingly. 'Yes, my eldest comes to rejoin us for the birth, as we all hoped she would. It has been many a generation since one of our blood was born outside our home. Come in, my son and daughter, come in, and we shall feast.' The old man ordered two servants to find any food they could and bring it to the chieftain's house.

Later, as Freyne and his guards enjoyed good food and wine, and laughed raucously at the entertainment, Aislinn explained all to her father in hushed tones. He listened with steady eyes and a knowing frown.

'I shall send somebody,' he said eventually, 'to assure us that the dragons are all right. It is true, we ourselves have only seen one, a copper, flying in his skies of late. Do not worry, though, daughter, it takes much to kill a dragon.'

The first spasm came early, well before any light could be seen on the horizon. Freyne called a servant to his bedchamber, where his wife was already sweat-laden and panting. Soon the entire household was awake, and the Saxon king and his father-in-law stood anxiously in the hall, watching maids rush about with bloodstained sheets and listening to the agonised cries from within.

Eventually the midwife approached the two chieftains.

'It is a boy,' she sighed, and walked off to clean her arms and clothes.

* * *

The messenger was dispatched immediately. He rode for an entire day to the instructed place, a towering cliff set above the forest that caught the light of the morning sun and glimmered.

The drakka inside heard the pounding of the messenger horse's hooves before the man called out. She snarled, wrapping her tail closer about her precious eggs. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance, every muscle tense and ready to spurt fire at any intruder. Her mate woke, sensing her unease, and heard the young man calling out from below. He spoke in a tongue Hanorh little understood: Gaelic. He stalked out onto the precipice of the cliff and glanced down.

'Call your name and purpose!' he trumpeted down.

'My name is Conall, of the Celts, my lord,' the oung man called. 'I bring news both good and ill.'

'What is it?'

'The lady Aislinn has had her child,' Conall shouted up. 'A boy of healthy size and complection.'

'Aislinn?' Aurha called weakly from the cave.

'Hush,' Hanorh replied lovingly, 'save your strength.' To Conall 'And what is the ill?'

'That folk in the valleys are complaining of livestock taken by dragon claw and fire. The lady Aislinn fears for you and your mate, if she still lives.' Conall's horse shifted nervously at the proximity of the male dragon perched above.

'She lives, and is well,' Hanorh called, after figuring out the phrasing. 'She – we have a clutch of our own, tell the lady Aislinn.'

'Yes, my lord, I will see her personally.

Hanorh returned to the cavern and lay down beside Aurha, who had listened carefully to their conversation.

'You speak their tongues better every day, my lord,' she told him fondly.

'Only because I had such a good teacher, and even then the sounds are stiff on my tongue.'

'You'll get used to it,' she replied, nuzzling into him. 'But this news of unrest worries me. Humans can be vengeful if they find something to blame for their woes – be it beast, king or dragon.' She glanced nervously at her eggs.

'What man would dare stand against you, Aurha _Hla__fr__ah_? I certainly wouldn't.'

'You would stand with me, Hanorh_ Shasahghre_, surely?'

'Of course, my love, always.' Aurha laughed that light and powerful laugh of hers and leaned comfortably against her mate. She had not left the cave since their eggs were laid.

In the Celt settlement, another female was looking affectionately at her offspring. But Aislinn also carried a niggling doubt in the back of her mind, for already Einon, her son, bore the look of Freyne, and maybe he had inherited the king's cruelty as well? She would take the child to the green drakka when he was old enough to walk, and seek her counsel. At the moment the babe slept, so she put her cares away.

A servant, dressed in messenger garb, padded silently into the room, so as not to disturb the newborn or his mother.

'I bring news from the dragons,' he murmured in Gaelic, so as not to be overheard. 'They are both well, know now of the danger posed to them, and tell me the green is expecting.' He grinned and sat down on the edge of the bed. 'Now how is my nephew?'

* * *

I've forgotten to do this for about three chapters now. 'Aurha' means North Star in Drakine, 'Hanorh' is 'South Fire', 'Skyar' that grey dragon from 3 chapters ago) means 'Eagle', 'Rheshrah' (draon's name for constellation Draco) means 'Star King', and then the titles Hanorh and Aurha are using for each other are just titles made up on the spot, and mean nothing. 'Hlafrah' means Sharp Claws, and 'Shasahghre' means Bloodied Scales.

So there you go, in case anybody was wondering. Don't forget to review, and thanks for reading!

Shadowxwolf


	8. Hatching

Enough of Freyne, I think...backto fluff. Yey!! R&R everybody!

* * *

The dragon soared through the swirling eddies with a stormy grey ocean churning beneath her, stretching as far as the eye could see. Even from her great height she could see the chunks of ice floating in the waves. Frost patterned on her green wings.

The wind grew stronger, like some old weather god was trying to buffet this lonely creature from the sky. But the green was an expert flier, and revelled in the way her wings only had to tilt slightly to glide over the world. She laughed in the face of the winds, and curled her frame to ride it, like a wisp of gale herself, more and a creature of flesh, blood and flame.

But something was changed. The sounds of hail tapping on stones reached the drakka's ears, but she couldn't see any, though the clouds were a raging shade of purple. Where was the hail?

The noise grew louder, and she followed it like it was a lantern of a stranger on a dark night, dragged from her dream in an instant.

Her mate lay sleeping quietly beside her, his coppery wing draped over her flanks and their eggs like some protective human blanket. It gave her comfort and warmth to know Hanorh was there.

The tapping. It was here in their cave, its echo playing strangely across the rock walls. A wild excitement built itself like her first fire in Aurha's chest. The tapping was coming from their eggs. They were hatching.

'Hanorh, Hanorh, my love, wake,' she said gently, licking his face. A new energy was quivering through the drakka, and her wing muscles flexed nervously as she waited for the copper to wake up.

'What is it, Aurha?' he asked, suddenly alert, sensing the anxiety of his mate. 'Is it men?'

'No such thing, my lord. Look.' Aurha nudged his wing away carefully to reveal the seven eggs laid in the depths of winter. Now spring was coming, and they were stirring.

'Our eggs?' Hanorh asked in disbelief. 'Are our eggs finally hatching?' Aurha nodded proudly, curling her tail protectively around their clutch as they struggled to break free of their shells. Hanorh purred happily and nuzzled his mate, gazing down at the white elongated spheres as though they held all his interest.

A shaft of light pierced the cave entrance and fell golden upon the floor. It felt warm and held the promise of summer. 'Look, Hanorh, at the day. It is the Equinox, when day and night share equally,' Aurha whispered. She smiled and bent her graceful neck down to the twitching eggs. 'Come out, my children,' she crooned, 'there is a whole world waiting for you.'

'I will find some meat. They'll be hungry when they make their way out. I remember I was,' the copper said, nuzzling his mate again as he made his way to the entrance. 'I will be back soon.'

By the time the first egg broke, the sun shafts had crept fully into the cave and glittered off the accumulated gemstones studding the rock. A small nose, slimy with yolk, poked out to take its first breath of air. The hatchling kicked out and thumped with its tail, suddenly desperate to be rid of the casing that had sheltered it for so many months. A clattering of claws made Aurha turn from the miracle and instinctively move between the eggs and the danger. But it was only her mate, returning with a dead carthorse. She looked at it with horror.

'Tell me you didn't take that from humans,' she whispered with dread.

'No. It was lost and wild,' Hanorh lied, placing the carcass near the nest. It would do to agitate his mate. If any men did come looking for this nag, he'd be ready for them. The first hatchling had completely lost its shell by now, and squeaked loudly as two more noses broke through their shells. He was copper, like Hanorh, though slightly darker. He stumbled over to his parents on unsteady hatchling legs, and squeaked up at them, trying to make sense of their scaly bulk. _Safe, _his instincts told him.

'Hello, my little drake,' Aurha said, reaching out to sniff her first son. She licked round his face.

The next to hatch was a drakka of unusual colouring. She was green like her mother, but had a copper sheen to her scales. Immediately she wobbled over to where her brother was gorging himself and wrestled him for the dominant spot, her small, wet wings half furled to make herself look bigger.

'I think that one might be difficult,' Hanorh commented. 'She takes after you.' Aurha nipped him playfully on the shoulder.

In all, a copper, two greens, a red, a blue and a bronze were hatched, and all stood squabbling over the horse Hanorh had brought. The copper-green, Seshkra, and her oldest brother Handreth, were keeping the others at bay together. Hanorh purred with pride and happiness as his hatchlings hungrily devoured the meat. Aurha wasn't so enthusiastic.

'What is wrong, my love?' he asked, sensing her mood. 'We have six healthy hatchlings.'

'Yes,' she murmured. 'Six.' She was curled up around the remaining egg, staring at it with a sad frown. She licked its still, cold shell and growled softly. 'Come out, little one,' she whispered, the pleading in her voice breaking Hanorh's heart. It was tragic that one of the eggs hadn't survived, but that was the way it was. Sometimes eggs didn't last to hatch. It was nobody's fault, and it couldn't be changed.

'Aurha,' he said gently. 'One out of seven. We have six healthy. This one didn't make it.'

'No!' cried Aurha hoarsely, staring at him with incredulity. Dragons couldn't cry, but the look she gave him was the utterly distraught glare of a desperate mother, and she clutched the egg closer to her scales. 'There is still a chance,' she muttered. 'Still a chance. . .' She leaned over the egg and licked it again, nudging it with her snout.

'Aurha –' She snarled at him, wildly protective of the object clutched gently in her talons.

'It's not dead!' she hissed.

'Let go,' he replied gently. 'Look at them. Those are your children, Aurha. Six of them, and they need you.'

'But –' she looked confused.

'Let it go,' he soothed, 'This one has already met Rheshrah.' The copper pressed his warm bulk against his mate to calm her, tenderly removing the egg from her claws. It twitched slightly as he moved it. His claws clicked across its surface. The second time it happened, his talons were nowhere near it. The egg shifted position all by itself. The hatchling inside was alive!

'Aurha!' he cried excitedly.

'What?' she answered sullenly.

'You were right, my love.' A crack shuddered through the egg and an instant later a leathery head appeared in a quickly widening hole. A copper head. Aurha snorted softly as she observed her youngest hatchling struggling to emerge. A smile spread cautiously across her face, as if she wasn't daring to believe her eyes. The hatchling chirped in triumph when it finally wriggled free.

'We will have to name you Rhehala,' the green murmured to her son. She looked into her mate's eyes.

'Perfect,' he said.

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For those of you who were wondering, Seshkra means 'Gilded Wings', Handreth means 'Southern Sun', and Rhehala means 'Prince Of Fortune'. The other hatchlings' names will be revealed in th next chapter

Shadowxwolf


	9. Dragon King

Taking care of hatchlings was not easy. Especially when there were seven of them. They had grown quickly, and were almost the size of their parents' heads after one month. They had voracious appetites, so any time Hanorh spent not guarding the cave or collapsed from exhaustion, he spent hunting. Aurha's instinct told her not to leave her offspring alone, not even with their father, so her days were spent watching over the hatchlings and yearning for wind beneath her wings.

A hierarchy was soon established among the hatchlings. First were Handreth and his copper-green sister, who claimed the hearts of kills and the most comfortable sleeping places on their mother. Then the blue drakka Iissell who kept the others at bay and settled fights between her siblings. It was often Drethse, the red drake, who started them. His bronze brother Khrath usually provoked him. The other two, Rhehala the copper and Threha the green, were quieter, at the bottom of the food chain; they only got the gut and stringy legs of herbivores once the others were finished with the carcass, but Aurha made sure they had enough to eat by teaching them to crack marrow bones open with their powerful young jaws.

Of all of them, Seshkra was the most inquisitive. She could often be heard squeaking for help, having got caught in some nook or cranny she was too small to fit into. Or she would try and wander outside the cave to peek at the world beyond, but Mother's tail always managed to slap down just in time. The sun had risen in the sky, and one day, she decided to sneak out again, this time using the light to make the shadows blinder. She was smart as well as curious. It worked, she got past the reach of Mother's tail.

A huge, dozing bulk suddenly rose in front of her, and she recognised her sire's smell. He would be a great vantage point to see the world from, and he wasn't nearly as uptight as Mother about letting her see the world.

Hanorh felt something scrabbling up his flanks, and turned his head slightly to see one of his children trying to climb his haunch, and then navigate over his wings to his neck then head. He felt a weight settle on one of his horns as the hatchlings curled around it, her tail dangling in his eye.

'I might have known it would be you, Seshkra,' he purred. 'How did you escape your mother?'

'Hello Father,' Seshkra replied. 'I came to see the world.'

'Then look out on it, daughter,' Hanorh laughed, stretching out his head to give Seshkra a better view. She hissed in amazement. 'This is only a small fragment of it,' Hanorh told her, 'The rest lies over many horizons.'

'The world must be huge.'

'Only for one so small. To a dragon, the world is nothing. It is like the cave is to you now, but soon, it will seem small.'

'Oh.' Seshkra rested her head against her father's crest. He could almost hear her brain ticking. She was cleverer than the rest of them, and it wouldn't take her long to think of something else to ask.

'Father?'

'Mmm?'

'Why must you stay out here and not come inside?'

'I must guard the cave,' he replied gravely.

'Why?' chirped Seshkra from his crest.

'Because there might be danger.' Shresa snorted at the idea that anything could be dangerous to a dragon, and Hanorh told her that pride and overconfidence could kill her.

'But Father,' Seshkra reasoned, climbing down onto Hanorh's snout, 'there is nothing more fierce or strong or cunning as a dragon. How can we fear anything? What about bears?'

Hanorh chuckled and waggled his eyebrows at her. 'Not bears, my star, they fear us. Although they might make a meal of a hatchling.'

'Not me, I'd flame at it,' Seshkra growled in her high hatchling voice, baring fangs to her imaginary enemy. Sparks shot from her nostrils, but no real flame.

'I bet you would, my star. But what you must fear is man.'

'What's man?'

'A creature that stands on two legs and thinks with the cunning of a dragon. One alone is easy to overcome, but they hunt in packs like wolves, and erode at the world like an irreversible ocean eating a coastline.'

'Mother said they had no fangs or claws, and that they aren't swift like hawks or horses. How do they hunt?' Seshkra asked, always inquisitive.

'They make tools with their clawless digits – arrows that fly at us through the sky and great axes and swords to pierce our hides, and tame horses to ride,' Hanorh answered gravely.

'Ride?'

'A man can make a horse take him on his back. The horses lose their freedom and have to do as the man says.' Seshkra snorted again and vowed never to let a man ride on her back. 'And nor should you, my star,' Hanorh told her. 'One thing a dragon must have is freedom, for if a dragon cannot fly like the wind itself, and do what he wishes, then he is not a dragon. Remember that.'

'I will, Father,' the little green promised solemnly, pausing in her attempts to snap up a fly.

'Good drakka. And remember that only men can kill a healthy dragon.'

'Yes father.' The fly didn't last much longer.

Sounds of combat echoed from within the cave. Hanorh's massive head turned, Seshkra still atop it, and he sighed. His daughter peeped in excitement, her hatchling growl rising to be used against whichever sibling was challenging the peace. Even she was surprised though when she leaped straight of her father's muzzle and fluttered safely to the floor. Hatchlings had neither the muscle strength nor the size of wing needed for flight. She was growing strong, Hanorh noted with pride. The young drakka didn't seem to care though as she rushed off into the glittering gloom of the cave, piping out a war cry to her nestmates. Yes, the copper thought to himself, that one was definitely like her mother.

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Aw, cute drgaon hatchlings! I was thinking about doing a chapter for each of the hatchlings, what do you think? 


	10. Handreth

So this chapter is numero deux of seven about each of the hatchlings in turn. Personally, I don't think this one is as good as the others, but feel free to review and tell me what you think...and also if you find any mistakes, because I'm finding I can't type anymore.

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There were now almost hourly squeaks and tiny roars coming from Aurha and Haonorh's cave. The hatchlings had grown more active, and their appetite had increased.

'Seshkra! Seshkra!' Handreth called one morning. 'Come help me put this usurper back in his place!' He squeaked in rage at Drethse, who was underneath him, and who had just tried to throw him off.

Seshkra merely yawned widely. 'If you need my help to dispatch of the red, you're not that good for anything,' she drawled lazily. The copper harrumphed and resumed wrestling with his younger sibling. The copper-green female was without a doubt the ringleader of the nest, but as with any good leader, she realised that sometimes they needed to sort squabbles out by themselves. Besides, she had just woken up and was in no mood to be clawed by her brothers.

The copper and the red tumbled and squeak-roared around the whole cavern. Handreth used his mother as leverage and sprang down on Drethse, who rolled away.

'Ow!' the red cried suddenly. 'OW! Mother! Mother!'

Aurha opened one bleary eye. 'Handreth, let loose your brother's wing,' and she went back to sleep. The copper spat out the leathery limb with contempt, and crawled up to lounge beside Seshkra on Mother's best spot.

'You didn't really mean it, when you said I was useless, did you?' he asked. Her head snaked round and she nipped him.

'Don't be such a bird, Copper,' she scolded. 'If you go your whole life worrying what others think it'll be a miracle if you make your mating flight.' She snorted. 'Father says life is tricks. You have to trick the stronger into thinking they are weaker, and the weaker they are strong, and if neither of those works, just loose your flame on 'em.'

'That last bit doesn't sound like Father,' Handreth replied.

'No, that bit was mother,' the copper-green admitted, settling down closer into the cavity where Aurha's wing folded over.

'But what does it mean?'

'What?'

'What you just said.'

'I don't know. Ask Father,' and with that, Aurha curled up and went back to sleep.

About a week later, Handreth embarked on a fairly fruitless task. One of the gemstones littering the wall of the cave had caught his eye and come slightly loose, and now he tugged at it with his teeth and bashed it with his tail. Finally he grew so frustrated, having tried every possible angle, that he snorted at it in disgust. A thin jet of flame shot from his nostrils and landed on the wall, dripping off the rock in golden tongues. He rushed back to Aurha's huge green side. She had been woken by the smell of dragonfire, and had gathered all the hatchlings under her protective belly.

'Mother! You'll never guess!' he piped excitedly.

'What is it?' she growled, alert to the sound of intruders.

'I breathed fire!'

All the hatchlings were interested now. 'Show us, Handreth! Show us!' they called excitedly. So he did. He drew up his neck and snaked it back, every sense focussed on reproducing a flame. He breathed in and. . .

And nothing. Fire had not come spouting from his nostrils, and now all his siblings rolled over with laughter.

'Brilliant fire, Copper,' Drethse jeered. 'You must be a new kind if dragon to have invisible fire. Oh, how you enemies will tremble at it!' Handreth, puffing out his chest, gave a tiny hatchling war cry and pummelled into his nest-mate, wrestling him to the floor until he apologised. The others

squeaked in excitement, egging on the red and cheering when the copper got the upper hand. Their allegiances were fickle, and they tossed and turned in favour of the prospective victor, whoever it was at any particular moment.

Handreth won, as he always did, and the hatchlings lost interest, immediately forgetting what it was they were fighting about. Only Seshkra remained, crouched, her tail wrapped around her legs.

'Come to scoff as well, Seshkra?' Handreth asked morosely, desperately disappointed that his flame had failed.

'No,' she replied, looking genuinely surprised. 'I believe you.' He cocked his head at her in bemusement, and she sighed. 'Males,' she muttered. 'You smell like dragonfire, Handreth,' she explained.

Handreth practiced his fire away from the others where they couldn't see him to laugh at him. He was a very proud young drake, and failure repulsed him. It took him a while to recreate the exact sequence of events that led to that first globule of flame bursting from his nose, but when it happened again he got excited. He dragged his sister over to watch him practicing now, and became interested when he actually _did_ something.

'Will you teach me?' she asked. He nodded and hurriedly told her what to do.

'Lift your head, yes, like that, and snake your head back like you're about to strike. Inhale. Feel your chest muscles convulse, and . . . release!' Seshkra felt like an idiot doing as her brother was telling her, but she too got excited when the thinnest of thin flames spat lazily from her snout.

'Come, Handreth, I hear Father coming. We must defend our prize!' Seshkra piped suddenly, cocking her head to a sound only she could hear. Seshkra's ears were very good- and always right.

The two hatchlings stood on top of the carcass once again, tag-teaming so that one ate while the other snacked on tasty organs and muscle. This one had once been a wild boar, but was fast being stripped of any edible part.

Hanorh lay down next to his mate and rested his head on her shoulder. 'Are you weary, my love?' Aurha asked gently. Hanorh murmured the affirmative in his half-sleep. She looked at him fondly, enjoying the calm that sleep gave to her mate's usually frowning, worry-worn features. He laughed too, and there was the barest hint of an upward curve lingering on his lips at his nearness to his mate. 'Hanorh,' Aurha whispered in his ear. 'Handreth has breathed first flame, and so has Seshkra.' The copper shifted slightly, but went on sleeping. Let him, she thought.

A sense of tingling excitement stalked through Aurha's every nerve now. Traditionally, when the first hatchling could breathe fire, parental duties swapped, and the drakka hunted for the family. Her maternal instincts were still powerful within her, but Aurha's yearning for open sky and the knowledge that now her children could at least put up a fight was comfort enough for her to leave them. She could unfurl her wings again and dance with air currents again. She couldn't wait.


	11. Iissell

To feel wind rushing once more under her wings made the drakka more overjoyed than she had been in months. It lifted her, body and soul, until she swirled like a leaf in a gale. Only Aurha controlled how she dived and pivoted on the air. The feeling of muscles and sinew too long dormant rippling through her body like waves surged to her head and made her dizzy. She laughed and roared in pleasure at the sensation of wind whistling over her scales. Altitude was nothing to her now as she revelled and soared in her newly acquired freedom.

But still she didn't go far. The nesting cave was always kept in sight on that maiden voyage, and Aurha's mind kept flitting back to her hatchlings, still so young and vulnerable, as they played protected by their father's watchful eye. Cognitive thought told the drakka that Hanorh would die to defend his young, she had seen him almost do the same for her, but instinct still worried at her brain – the deep rooted belief that baby dragons would never be truly safe with anything but their mother.

Even so, she had to hunt. Hanorh had almost definitely exhausted the prey in the immediate area around the nesting cave, and the old dragon adage, _overhunt the deer, starvation you must fear, _rang through her mind with the voice of her own mother. She banked on her left wing and swerved west in the direction of better hunting grounds.

Hanorh watched his mate leave with the special mixture of love and awe he always felt when he saw her flying. The grace with which her wings beat and the easiness with which she could alter direction fascinated him still, as it had on the very first day he had seen her with the sun bouncing off her green scales like rain off the sparkling surface of a pond. He would never forget how he had pursued her for three days and nights before earning her name.

'What are you thinking, Father?' asked Iissell, watching his facial expression intently. It was the closest a dragon could come to smiling, and it made Hanorh's eyes crinkle at the corners. The copper turned to his blue daughter. She was more slender than the others, more reptilian, from the graceful slants of her dark eyes to the length of her narrow tail and the delicate bones of her wings. She had the look of Hanorh's mother, and he was proud of that.

'Nothing, little one,' he replied. 'Just reliving fond memories.' He watched his mate turn away and head west, feeling the slight pang of worry he always felt when she disappeared from his sight. The fact that Aurha could tear the wing off a dragon twice her size didn't enter into the equation.

'What memories?' Iissell pressed. She was the one who asked most questions, learning about the world through a constant bombardment of them.

'About your mother,' Hanorh said gently.

'Seshkra says you told her you would break the ancient pact if anything happened to mother,' the little blue informed him smartly.

'Did she now? Well, it's true. I would. I would break it if men did anything to any of you,' he said distantly. Iissell was confused. She didn't know what the ancient pact was, and she told he father so. He dragon-smiled again and led her inside. 'Maybe it is time to tell you about Rheshrah then,' he mused.

'What's Rheshrah?'

'I haven't told you yet. We'll wait for the stars to come out, then I'll tell you all,' Hanorh promised, taking a stance in the entrance of the cave. Anything that wanted to hurt his family would have to get through him first.

Iissell waited all day, wrapped around a stalactite and trying not to fidget. Her siblings tried once or twice to provoke her into squabbling, but she retorted in a very grown-up sounding voice that she was waiting for the sun to set so that Father could tell them about the ancient pact. She soon found herself the centre of attention as they all gathered around her, hanging off her every word as she told what she knew with great embellishment.

Hanorh was lightly dozing when his young brood stalked up and jumped on him. Seshkra quickly scurried up his scales and took her favourite spot on top of his crest. She was getting heavier.

'Will you tell us now, Father?' Iissell asked hopefully, settling down between his forelimbs. She was tiny in comparison to his bulk, though she was fast approaching the size of a large wolf.

'Do you all wish to know the story of Rheshrah?' he asked. The assembly chirped wildly and he laughed. 'If I must then.'

So he started by drawing their attentions to the glittering night sky. The hatchlings had often looked at the myriad stars before, and even played games trying to find patterns in them, but it was all in ignorance. Hanorh focused them on the north and a clear serpentine pattern hanging there.

'First fix your eyes on that pattern, and know it off by heart. It will lead you when you are lost, and give you hope in despair,' he began. 'That constellation is Rheshrah, the Dragons' Heaven. All of our ancestors exist there, though they may be gone from the earth.' The hatchlings were captivated. Hanorh's eyes took on a faraway look as he lost himself in memories of his own hatchling days and being told this story by his parents.

'It wasn't always there though. At the dawn of man, when the dragon was already ancient and had seen man evolve from the trees, the wisest of our race pitied them, and saw the potential locked up inside their species. He gathered together all the dragons and made them vow to protect this fledgling race. We gave them fire and they worshipped us like gods, involving us in their stories as great protectors of earth and sky.

'At the moment of Rheshrah's death, his body simply vanished, and the night gleamed with those stars, newly formed. This was how the Dragons' Heaven came into being. At first, all was well, and dragons and men alike would look to those stars for guidance.' Hanorh's voice grew darker then, his face shadowed by a contemplating frown.

'But then man became arrogant. He discovered how to make fire for himself, and with it, weapons and tools to use against us. Some, like the Celts, remembered how we had watched over them through the ages, but most grew tired of the protection and rebelled. They hunted first with bronze and then with steel.

'But the promise still held, and as some dragons fought back in vengeance against their attackers, the spirit of Rheshrah appeared to them at Avalon. "I commanded you to watch over man, always!" he roared at them. "Why do you satiate yourselves on their blood?"' Hanorh dropped his voice to a deep growl in imitation of the Dragon Lord's powerful tone.

'One dragon, named Krahye, Bloodied Wings, who was braver than the others and who had suffered terribly at the hand of men, replied "You told us that when man was like all other animals, and lived with the world." His voice was stung with hate and loss, for barely a moon before his mate and hatchlings had been slaughtered. "Now they run amok, against all of Nature. If we do not stand against them, they will destroy us!" There was a great uproar at this, for there wasn't a drake or drakka present who hadn't suffered in some way.

"Humans are still young, and there are those who still remember the old ways," Rheshrah replied. "They will learn." But Rheshrah agreed with his descendants that so long as humans roamed freely and without guidance, disaster would reign over the world.' Here the copper paused in his narrative, his expression one of eternal sadness. He looked about him at the hatchlings. Each one of them had found a little nook along his warm body, and had snuggled down to listen to the story. Rhehala, Handreth and Threha had fallen asleep with the lulling tones of his voice. Only Iissell and Seshkra were still paying rapt attention. The little blue shuddered at imagining the horrible deeds of men, and her older sister bristled with anger.

'Father,' asked Iissell suddenly. 'What does it mean when you said humans go against all of Nature?'

'Dragons are tied to the Earth, Iissell,' Hanorh replied. 'If we perish, then so does the world.'

'How?'

'It will lose its wonder,' he said solemnly. There was silence for a moment as each of the dragons considered this in their own way.

'Tell us what happened then,' Iissell pleaded after a while.

Hanorh gathered his trail of thought before continuing. 'Rheshrah made Krahye his speaker, and he held an audience with Merlin, and Arthur. Merlin was a sorcerer of the old ways, born of the Celts and a friend to dragons. Arthur was a youth with a foot in both worlds, as the humans say, born of a Celt and the Christian king of the time, Uther. Together they made a promise to reunite man and dragon: and thus the Old Code was born. Arthur became High King, and kept the peace with his band of knights, each of which had to recite the Code. This is what they said, more or less: "His blade defends the helpless, His might upholds the weak, His wrath undoes the wicked, His word speaks only truth."

'But within this treaty came a warning: all dragons were bound to the code enough so that if they ever betrayed it by slaughtering the innocent for another's misdeeds, they could not enter the kingdom of Rheshrah. And so every dragon must earn his place among the heavens, or our spirit disappears as if we never existed, and those we loved in the past will never see us again.'

Silence. Hanorh looked down to see Iissell sleeping soundly, curled up in his forelimbs to make better use of the warmth. The tale was far from finished, for there were many ways a dragon could prove himself worthy, and besides, all young fledglings must be shown Avalon, the place where the decree was first passed and its ancient, binding magic still smelled thick on the air. No human had seen it in hundreds of years. He took one last stare at the heavens, feeling supremely happy with all of his young so close, and laid his head next to that of his blue daughter, watching her gentle breathing as he himself drifted into sleep. Always though he kept one eye open towards the entrance.

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Some credit for this chapter has to go to Tallacus, for suggesting that I do the whole 'Draco' story thing. I was toying with the idea, but my good friend helped it along a bit...so, here's a cookie for you, and anyone who fels like reviewing - it really makes me happy and makes me update faster!


	12. Prince Of The South

Summer lounged high on the blue peaks to the north, glorifying in the warm sunlight it bathed in at that time of year. In the distant south, the vibrant greens were already turning, robing the lush valleys in swathes of royal gold and scarlet as, spent from gorging themselves on the sun, the trees closed down for the onslaught of winter. And the dragons' cave was above all of this, watching aloof as the seasons smoothly changed.

The hatchlings were fast reaching the age when they would first fly, they could all breath flame, whether it be Drethse's inferno or Rhehala's small lick of fire. Eagerly they tested their wings on the precipice of the cave, guarded carefully by one parent while the other hunted.

Now, Hanorh lay basking in the high sunshine, right on the edge of the cliff, his body acting as a barrier between his children and the rather large drop below. He lazed with one eye open, watching them as they scrambled up through the rocks to ambush each other or explore. Rhehala stayed close to the cave mouth, but, being small, he could fit into crevices the others couldn't, and so the games of chase they often played round the outcroppings of rock would turn into hide-and-seek. Seshkra often took up a sentinel position above her siblings, eyes focussed on the horizon or else on the best chance for pouncing on Handreth and the others. Drethse and Khrath, forever rivals, could be heard squeaking from a while away. Yes, everything was well, and the large copper drake found himself nodding off.

A warning squawk from Rhehala, who was quick to detect any small change in the world, sent all seven hatchlings ducking for the cover of their father, who raised himself faster than should be possible for such a large creature. They clustered beneath his scaled belly as he glared out on the world, wings half unfurled and tail swaying dangerously. He was ready to shoot fire at anything to come within forty feet.

A high shriek sounded from above, the direction of the sun. Hanorh couldn't see the thing that was laughing at him, so he growled at it. Whatever it was let out the shrieking laughter again.

'Show yourself!' the drake growled. 'Lest I loose my fire on you.'

A dark shadow looped across the sun before wheeling away again. 'Do you promise not to flame me anyway? Dragons are so paranoid.' Whatever it was spoke a language that wasn't quite drakine, but similar to it, so it just sounded to the hatchlings like a drake with a high voice who over pronounced the vowels. Hanorh seemed to recognise the voice though.

'Ayaar!' he roared in greeting. 'What are you doing here, you old featherbrain? Swoop low and meet my hatchlings, if your talons deign to touch the ground!'

'Always so polite,' the thing called Ayaar's voice replied sarcastically. His shadow passed in front of the sun again, growing larger and more defined. It looked vaguely dragon-shaped, but without a tail or long neck, and no scales glinted on his flanks.

An enormous golden eagle alighted on the rock as regally as a dragon, ruffling his feathers prudently as he folded his wings. Despite his tiny size, being smaller than the hatchlings, perched upon his rock Ayaar looked just as fierce as Hanorh, especially when his head turned to better survey the hatchlings. They all shrank slightly from his piercing gaze. He turned to the copper.

'So it is true,' he said in his strange lilt. 'The pride of the southern skies soared north and started a family. The breeze says you tamed the Northern Star.'

'It would be impossible to tame Aurha,' Hanorh replied with love.

'Perhaps that opinion is why she mated with you,' the eagle replied dryly. 'But what a far cry this is from the plentiful marches of the south.'

'It is polite for guests to be introduced before they start complaining, Ayaar,' Hanorh said with the merest hint of irritation, even though he smiled.

Ayaar cocked his head slightly. 'Of course. Then introduce me, and stop playing host so badly,' he laughed. A second later he took flight with an indignant shriek as Hanorh flamed the bare rock beside him.

'This is my first clutch; Handreth, Seshkra, Drethse, Khrath, Iissell, Threha and Rhehala,' Hanorh said proudly, puffing himself up to his full height, which was considerable. 'My hatchlings, meet Ayaar, the lord of the eagles in the south.'

'Alas, lord no more,' Ayaar cut in. 'A young upstart named Aeekaar supplanted me,' he said bitterly, ruffling his neck feathers again. 'He had no honour in doing it either. He and his mate attacked me when I was separate from mine, and they did the same to her.'

'How is Akeeraa?' Hanorh asked with concern. The sad droop of Ayaar's magnificent wings answered. His mate had been killed. The copper felt an overwhelming surge of pity for his old friend; even imagining what he would do if Aurha was killed was too painful to think about. There was silence.

'Excuse me, but how do you know Father?' Rhehala asked suddenly, gazing at the eagle with awe. Ayaar looked affronted and ruffled his feathers. 'Do you mean to tell me, young drake, that your sire has never mentioned me? Not even in passing?' Rhehala shook his head.

'He never said anything about the south,' piped up Threha, who liked a story and could sense one coming.

'Threha,' Hanorh chided, gazing down at his youngest daughter. But the damage had been done, and the eagle was already settling down on his rock and beginning to tell the story.

'The south is a fascinating place, with no mountains except an indistinct blur on the horizon,' Ayaar began, 'and the plains are filled to bursting with prey. There, humans are few and are more primitive, and so creatures like dragons can thrive and not live in hiding. There are so many that they must pay respect to each other, and live as wolves do – with a hierarchy. The strongest lead and the weaker follow. Your father's sire is Hyeorh, who traces his lineage back to Krahye; his mother is Alassell, a drakka with azure scales. They are the mightiest dragons in that part of the world. Hanorh here was the first born of their third clutch, and was considered the most handsome so far of Hyeorh's hatchlings. Unfortunately, he was born without a sense of direction.'

Here the eagle paused and looked amusedly at the large copper, who was trying to look bored and disinterested. If he had been human he would have been blushing. His tail twitched.

'Hanorh grew with delusions of grandeur. For fifteen turns of summer he remained like a crowned prince believing he was invincible. When he went out flying once, he ignored the weather signs of an approaching storm and presently got himself lost amongst the thunderheads. I saw him flying in circles and led him towards shelter. The mighty Hanorh has been indebted to this humble eagle since then.' The eagle peered amusedly at the large drake, recalling the scene with perfect clarity.

'I would hardly call you humble, featherbrain,' Hanorh muttered.

'Even so,' Ayaar replied. 'You still owe me a favour. I came north partially looking for you, and partly looking for new skies. I would rather not have to pass over those mountains,' he continued, glancing north. Blizzards were terribly uncomfortable.

'There is plenty of game here,' Hanorh said, knowing that sooner or later his old friend would ask to stay. 'But find your own aerie.'

'Of course.'

'There are a few eagles near here, but I've never seen them,' Hanorh said, glancing to the west. 'The sun's setting. You should find somewhere to roost.'



Ayaar, knowing his old friend well enough to know he had overstayed his welcome, bowed his head and took off, the rush of his wings creating a palpable wind that bent the sparse weeds growing on the lip of the cliff. Hanorh watched him go with his eye ridges slightly drawn together, his mood unreadable.

'Would you go back to the south, Father?' Rhehala asked, breaking him from his thoughts.

'My place is here, with you. Besides, life is more interesting with Aurha around. Perhaps when you are grown and go roaming, you will go south for yourself.'

'Really Father?'

'Really. Now inside, the air is getting cold.' He shooed them all into the dark safety of the cave with his nose, ignoring their loud protestations.

* * *

I really like writing this fic, it's relaxing. Next chapter we'll find out a bit more about Aurha's past and how she grew up. I'm sorry I haven't updated for ages, but i write all my chapters for all my fics before posting, and with exams and other things I haven't been on top of things...i hope you enjoyed that installment!


	13. The Northern Star

Phew, sorry for the long wait people, I had the worst bout of writer's block over the summer. I swear it's a contagious disease - my version of flu. Here's the next chapter, and, as promised, it contains some of Aurha's history. his story is nearing its end now I think, just so you're forewarned.

* * *

It was nearing the time when the hatchlings would be able to fly. Their wings had spread enormously, and the muscles that would drive their flight were powerful. Restlessly they would beat potent strokes with their wings, driving up miniature dust storms as the displaced air disturbed the dirt on the cave floor.

Unfortunately, it was also in these days that the first real winter storms started to blow cold from the north, roaring like a challenging drake through the crevices and formations of rock on the cliff face. The howls and battering sometimes frightened Rhehala and Iissell, and Khrath would rage about the cavern in his own whirlwind at the missed chance to test his wings. On a few occasions the storms became so terrible that even Hanorh was grounded to sit out the weather.

Aurha, by contrast, relished the wild weather, soaring off into the eye of the worst storms to pit her strength and wiles against the ice laden gales.

'Why does she go, Father?' asked Threha one time. 'Surely it's dangerous?'

Hanorh looked down at his daughter. There was no doubt that out of all the hatchlings she looked the most like her mother; the same emerald scales, lithe form and eyes that almost seemed to glow. 'That is why she goes, My Star,' he explained. 'She is as wild as the wind itself, and needs to feel the strongest of storms beneath her wings.' His eyes took on a faraway and wistful look as he recalled the shining dawn when he had seen his mate for the first time.

'But why? When she can stay warm and dry inside the cave?' The small drakka was huddled close to her sire's flank, seeking warmth from the heat of his fire. She had definitely inherited the copper's love of the sun.

'She doesn't feel the cold. She is known to her own clan as the Northern Star and is renowned as the wildest of drakkas.'

'I never knew Mother had a clan.'

'Only northern dragons do.'

'Is this going to be a story, Father?' Threha asked. If it was, she was going to have to be more comfortable. Hanorh smiled indulgently and nodded, requesting softly that Threha's siblings come and listen too. Khrath, Seshkra and Handreth turned reluctantly away from the cave entrance where they had been looking out longingly and were watching flakes of white stuff falling through the wind, beating Drethse and Rhehala, who left off their bout of wrestling and raced Iissell to the best spot on their father's haunches. It went without saying that Seshkra got Hanorh's head.

'Tell us the story now, Father!' Threha begged. She loved falling asleep to the sound of her father's lulling voice.

'Very well.'

* * *

Despite the dark skies that swelled like the steely crests of waves on northern seas, churning with the brooding of storm threats, the air was eerily empty. Aurha, the sole creature in the sky, glided above the black branches of the forest, the boughs like grasping claws making no sound save for the creaking of wood. There was no prey here, and no storms to chase. Her keen dragon sight was trained instead on a slight figure dressed in white, and a small contingent of badly concealed guards. Banking lower, the green smiled to herself. Humans were such queer animals; so certain of their dominance, and yet so unaware of their fragility – one failed harvest, one disaster, and they would all die away.

None of them noticed anything until the displaced wind from beneath the dragon's wings ruffled the bushes of the clearing. By then it was too late. The green dragon landed with force enough to make the ground shake, a snarl curling its lips and fire glowing in its hungry eyes. The men rushed to the aid of their queen and prince, daggers flashing, shouting curses. Aislinn halted them.

'Stay your swords,' she commanded. 'This dragon is a friend.' To the utter amazement of the soldiers, the dragon chuckled. Or, at least, a deep rumbling sound echoed from the dragon's chest that sounded like laughter.

'You have them well trained Aislinn,' Aurha observed in the Celtic tongue. She cast an amused glance at the startled men. Obviously to them dragons were just dumb beasts.

'It's been a long while, _Arach_,' Aislinn replied, bowing reverently. 'I have missed seeing your flight.'

'I have missed our conversations,' Aurha added. 'Is this your hatchling?' The infant, knowing he had turned the topic of conversation, jerked his head towards the giant green dragon above him, and Aurha saw something unsettling in his blue gaze. Something cold and cruel as steel.

'Einon,' Aislinn called him. The tiredness in her voice showed that she had seen what lurked in the child's soul, too.

'Hmm,' the drakka growled. 'Half Celt, half Saxon. Arthur was such.' This musing Aislinn knew was tipped by a darker sight. Since time immemorial her people had listened to the wisdom of dragons, and she trusted Aurha's judgement completely.

'What is wrong, _Arach_?' she asked anxiously when she said nothing more. Despite the likeness of Einon's features to his father's, and the suspicion that he could just grow up as mean-spirited, she still bore a mother's love and worry for him.

'I feel a shared fate with this boy, a bleak future for my family,' the green said slowly, feeling her voice rising from a recess of her soul that had once been called prophecy by one far older and wiser than herself. 'I see blood. Though alike Arthur in ancestry, he bears no likeness in temperament. His father's blood flows too thickly in his veins.'

'That is what I feared,' Aislinn admitted.

'Do not despair so totally, Aislinn,' Aurha said sternly.

'But what shall I do?' the queen almost begged. 'I see his father's evil inherent in his eyes always, and every moment spent with his sire only increases it.'

'He needs a tutor,' Aurha observed, watching the young prince find a snail in the grass and crush it, giggling with delight at the squelch. 'One who knows the once ways, and will teach him honour. A knight of the Old Code.' The green's eyes took on that faraway glaze again. 'Only a knight of the Old Code, a friend of dragons, can still the darkness in the boy's heart.'

A sharp wind gusted through the clearing, cutting the silence that had welled up. The guards shifted their weight nervously while their horses pranced and whinnied for fear of the dragon smell. Einon continued crushing snails. Eventually Aurha looked up into the sky; the clouds swirled with a greenish tinge that meant the worst of storms was closing rapidly; snow froze its scent on the wind.

'You should return to shelter,' she advised. With one last glance at the boy, the drakka spread her wide green wings, and with one mighty beat, launched herself back into the sky.

* * *

_If you go far enough north, the land never ceases to be white with ice, and the very air is frozen still, because it is so cold. In the summer there is no night, and in the depths of winter there is no day. The land at the top of the world stays in darkness for half a turn of the year. These are the lands that your mother was born in._

_In that place there are no men, save for a nomadic people who worship dragons as the bringers of sun in the Spring, and the stars shine so closely that it seems you could touch them if you flew high enough. Because prey is scarce, dragons live solitary lives, feeding on herds of large hoofed mammals and warm bloods that are almost like fish and raise their young under the ice in the summer. Once a year they gather at a half-moon of black rock to choose mates, present young to the world, and reunite with family. The young drakes and drakkas are presented to an old white drakka who, as the stories go, was once the mate of Rheshrah. She is blind, and her wings are withered, and they say she has the Gift of divination. She sees into the souls of the hatchlings brought before her, and titles them according to what she sees._

A new sound in the wind made the copper pause, tensing for battle, but it was only Aurha, landing at the cave entrance with all the weight of a feather, snow collected on her wings.

'Don't stop because I'm here,' she purred, her claws clicking on the rock. The hatchlings peeped in joy to see their mother safely returned, and she greeted each of them in turn.

'Your scales are like ice,' Hanorh complained as she settled down next to him. She ignored the comment and laid her head on his talons.

'Get on with the story, drake.'

Hanorh tenderly licked his mate's muzzle. 'If you so command.'

_When Aurha was brought before Lhuthall, great shafts of green and red and gold lights appeared in the sky – the Lights of the North – and glittered off the scales of all the dragons present. They all took it as a sign of specialty. Lhuthall herself whispered the future to the young green. Nobody knows what she said._

'Except Mother,' Seshkra pointed out, looking expectantly down on her mother, who cracked one eye open lazily. Suddenly there was a clamouring to hear the secret words, but Aurha refused. She had been forbidden from retelling it, but the words still echoed in her head as if she were among the Moonrocks still.

_You will fly further than any of us, Daughter, _the old drakka had whispered._ You will hatch a warrior, on whom the greatest destiny will be laid. Blood will be shed for you, and you will be the cause of a terrible revenge. Your freedom and fire is your curse, but it will bind you to the South Wind and bring you no more to the glittering tundra of your home._

The last part had come true, she was bound by love to a dragon of the south, and she had not seen her home since the night she was named Northern Star. She was he fixed point around which Destinies navigated, the pebble that set off the landslide, the spark of rage that caused a dragon to burn his enemies to ash.

'Please mother, tell us?' persisted Threha. 'It'll help with the story.'

'Your father is telling the story,' Aurha replied sternly. 'All he knows he will tell you.' Her head dropped back onto her mate's claws and snuggled into his warm chest. Hanorh sighed.

_Lhuthall then looked into the young drakka's soul, and saw her free spirit, her heartstrings twined with the wind itself. This drakka would try to touch the moon, and soar through the skies of every land, making great tempests her playthings. And thus, the drakka was given the title of Northern Star, and she did indeed roam far, across mighty oceans and vast continents, learning the ways of men and beasts and all of Nature, until, after many turns of the year she settled in a jewel studded cave high up on the side of a cliff, and there she has remained ever since._

Hanorh fell into silence and nuzzled his mate. Almost immediately there were clamourings from those of his hatchlings that had not been lulled into sleep by the melodious tones of his voice. The copper sighed, deciding Aurha could handle the situation.

'Tell us more!' Drethse demanded.

'Yes, mother, tell us more about your adventures!' Threha agreed. Aurha raised her head with deliberate slowness and looked at them indulgently.

'Some other time perhaps,' she said. 'But right now you all must sleep – I have been speaking with the wind, and it tells me that tomorrow is the day that you shall fly.' The excited flapping and squawking of young dragons echoed around the cavern for several minutes. 'Hush, now, and sleep,' the green scolded. 'You will need your wits about you when the day breaks.'

Obediently the hatchlings settled down and, with one sly eye on their parents pretended to sleep, though excitement sent shivers through their untested wings.

I never seem able to end chapters well - I must work on them. Either way, tell me what ya think! I love hearing from anyonwho has anything to say.

Oh yes, and I have Dragon Strike, fourth book in the Age of Fire series, on preorder, and I can't WAIT to get it!!


	14. Their Birthright

This is the second to last chapter, and apologies for the length and the long wait!

* * *

The wind blew the storm away, running out of energy in the early hours of the morning so that watery winter sunlight filtered into the cave when dawn broke over the land. Aurha was awake even before her excited hatchlings, and gazed out of the cave's entrance, and the world beyond framed by the dark, jewel studded rock. Hanorh woke with what was almost a start as he no longer felt the warmth of his mate next to him, but as he looked out he smiled. Aurha had always liked watching stars. With a glance at their still snoring brood, he moved out to join her on the ledge.

'It looks like good weather this morning, my love,' he said, trailing his snout along the edge of her wing. A pleasured growl rumbled in her throat at the touch.

'Yes, and our children will learn quickly today. Perhaps soon we may take them to Avalon.'

'Little wingbeats, my love. They will need to build their strength first. Were the stars shining last night?'

'As brightly as your scales, my lord,' Aurha crooned, nuzzling him.

They didn't have peace for long. Since the hatchlings often slept in an unruly pile, entwined around each other for warmth, as one woke and shifted so the others got up, yawning, until seven small masses of scale, all neck and tail and wings, erupted in a rabble. Immediately they remembered their mother's promise of the day before and all came rushing out, wings flapping in excitement.

'Yes, my stars, today is when you will unfold your wings and take up your birthright,' the copper said.

'I will fly over mountains and vast horizons!' Seshkra declared from her position above Hanorh's eyes.

'Maybe someday, but today you will not go far.' The hatchlings started to argue, to clamour and beat their wings to show how strong they were, but their mother's firm stare quelled them. Many a hatchling had been killed on their first flight because they had ventured too far.

Aurha looked benignly at her hatchlings before launching off the cliff into the thermal of rising, heated air; it let her hover more easily just beyond the ledge, ready to catch any tentative young dragons should they fall. Now that the prospect of flying was actually before them, the hatchlings looked slightly nervous, especially Iissell and Rhehala, who backed away from the edge with agitated tails.

Not so Handreth, who, puffing out his little copper chest, took a running leap at the edge of the cliff, flapping for all he was worth. The air beneath his wings for the first time felt the most liberating thing in the world, far better even than gorging on fresh cow. He squeaked half in pleasure and half in surprise as an updraft, stronger than the rest, lifted him a few feet and toppled him sideways. Quickly the young dragon corrected, using instincts honed to perfection by generations of his kind. There was nothing that could defeat him now, especially not the men who featured so often and so darkly in his parents' bedtime stories.

But keeping aloft was not automatic yet, and just as the Handreth swivelled his neck to proclaim victory to his clutchmates, he stopped beating his wings. A fall of about twenty feet taught him to keep his guard up, but earned laughter from his siblings.

'Wonderful demonstration!' Seshkra shouted down to him, and she barely missed the jet of flame spitefully hurled her way.

'Well then let's see you do better,' Hanorh said, dropping her most unceremoniously off the hard bone and scale of his forehead. With a haughty glance the lithe green settled herself on the edge and dived off just in the fashion of her mother. The little green had watched her parents when they went out hunting, and analysed how they flew, so she knew how. But her parents' wings and shoulders were far more developed, so the graceful dive became an awkward, spiralling fall.

'Seshkra!' Aurha cried, and locked her wings tight to catch up with her flailing daughter, falling like a peregrine. 'Seshkra, don't panic!' the green called over the wind. 'Move with the air, not against it! Control your fall!'

Despite the nearness of the ground, and her own panic, the words reached Seshkra. In that instant, some deep rooted reflex made the young green clasp her wings about herself, corkscrewing out of the fall to cup the air with her wings to gain altitude. Aurha followed anxiously a few feet behind, but after the first initial fright brought on by overconfidence, Seshkra seemed to take to the sky as a dragon should, and better than most of Aurha's brothers and sisters had when they had fledged.

From up on the cliff, Hanorh breathed a sigh of relief, and let the example of their two older siblings cow the rest into not attempting too much too soon. But one by one, they fledged and flew, gaining strength and speed every day, until the confidence of the older ones increased enough for mock battles to be held in the skies near the cave, though Aurha for fear of discovery would make them cavort a little way away from the cave entrance. It would not do to have men find their way to the family home. These aerial acrobatics, complete with fire displays and occasional hunting dives when the hatchlings, now of a size larger than wolves, would spot prey in the meadows and woods below, increased the uneasiness of the parents and they kept careful watch over the brood one at a time, while the other flew far away to find food.

Eventually though, as the season progressed and the hatchlings grew in their last growth spurt before they would leave their home cave, they wandered further and further afield, foraging and fighting, putting on muscle and wingspan to become properly proportioned adults. One afternoon, when Hanorh was away in the mountains to the north searching for aurochs in the deep forests that wooded the hillsides, Aurha had found a comfortable crag from which to keep an eye on her brood. It was out of the wind and high in the sun, with a commanding view all around. But complacency and comfort soon had her eyelids drooping and she fell asleep, catlike, in the warmth.

The hatchlings paid no heed to their mother, so bright were they in the glory of their birthright. The high sense gleaned from dizzying first flight had not yet worn off, and euphoria guided them in their daily pursuits. Khrath, the bronze, took a playful roll at the now bulky Drethse, trying to provoke a spar from the bigger but less nimble red. But on banking away, his sharp eyes spotted something amidst the trees, in a small clearing. It shined, whatever it was, but not in the pure, reflective way of water. This had an almost greasy look to it. With a bugle that told the others he had found something, Khrath descended to a lower altitude to examine the bright object more closely.

* * *

King Freyne was becoming bored with all the petitions from his peasants, and the lords too lazy to deal with them themselves. There were hordes of dragons, they said; breathing fire and stealing livestock, they complained. Aislinn, seated next to him only in the matters concerning the dragons because of the knowledge held by her people, and only present to have her advice overlooked, knew that the peasants were more frightened by the show of the powerful, deadly grace of a dragon aloft, and it was the lords who told tales of cows being taken, since they wanted tax reprieves of the king. The Green Drakka was far too wise to let her clutch take anything but wild beasts.

This went on for weeks. Freyne called upon the lords themselves to remove the problem, if they so wished, because the problems of one province did not concern the others, or the king. In truth he was too idle to want to exert effort to kill these dragons, and unwilling to spend money to hire dragonslayers to do it for him, especially if they were foreign and unlikely to pay it back to him in tax. But eventually persistence, and whispers of cowardice behind his back, roused the king's ire.

He ordered thirty of his palace guard to follow him to where the dragons were last seen, and a messenger was sent to the neighbouring realms offering gold to the services of a dragonslayer. The man they got was grizzled and burned, with an eye missing and half of his right hand clean removed in some struggle. He knew tricks to lure the dragons in, and to ground them, but with a tight lipped, knowing smile, refused to fight himself. He knew what was in store for these foolish men.

* * *

The first bolt shot up from the trees with the fatal grace of a heron striking. It came at Khrath from the right, and, not expecting it, he veered to late, and was raked along the ribs by the vicious iron barb. It fastened into his flesh even as he cried out in pain and tried to beat away, but the winch attached to the other end reeled him quickly towards the ground.

The others, seeing their brother attacked, came in in a whirlwind of flaming taloned fury. Iissell swung round and launched her flame at the rope, expecting it to snap, but iron was woven into the fibre and it held. The speed of the blue was too great to backbeat or turn when she realised, and she collided with the cable, getting tangled and bringing both her and her screaming brother to the ground. Trees crashed down as they smashed into the ground and men wasted no time in launching into the dazed creatures with arrows and axes. Iissell's final breath came in a gush of flame that killed three men in its path, and Khrath's in defending the body of his limp sister.

Rage overcame Rhehala for his blue sister's death, the only one of his siblings not to bully him, and swooped over to douse all the offenders in fire. But he came too low, and one of the bolts punched a hole right through his lungs on the downbeat, its force toppling him sideways into the branches of a large beech. It wasn't only branches snapping as he fell thrashing to the ground. His last gargling breath passed before the men dared come near him.

More harpoons shot up, but the remaining hatchlings, though past any thought but hatred, were now wary, and the lessons their parents taught came to the surface.

'Threha, go and find mother!' Handreth roared to his sister. They were still hatchlings after all. He watched her for just a heartbeat too long as a man managed to get an aim and shot an arrow through the delicate joint of his wing. He roared and shot fire wildly into the trees, but unable to use his right wing, could not stay aloft.

'Glide away, brother, we will stay!' called Seshkra over the sound of Drethse's fire. She barrelled round to catch a bolt aiming for her brother's flank. More arrows and harpoons flew from all directions, and she caught them all, unaware of the contingent of riders following them.

Behind her, her brother swooped low. All the humans had vanished, but he saw a slight twitch in Khrath's body. Surely his nestmate couldn't still be alive? The men had all gone, their scent only remained on the bodies of those he had charred to little more than skeletons. Still, he landed with all the power he could, wings half furled to impress his size, even though he was little bigger than a pony. All was quiet in the clearing, and Drethse let loose a low hiss to Khrath, a warning and a query. But no movement came from the body. Drethse stepped closer, sure of the movement he had seen. Then he smelled it. Human.

Khrath's body suddenly erupted, and only the basest instinct jerked the red's head back far enough to avoid being impaled on a pike. His neck whipped round snakelike as men emerged from the trees, sticking lances into his sides before he could react. He unfurled his wings in reaction, tearing the delicate membrane in his blind terror, but the men had an answer to that as well, and weighted nets were thrown over his back. A long tail sweep cut a mailed man in half. But lances in his neck pinioned him, and the pike found its mark.

* * *

Threha's wings had never pulsed as fast as they did in trying to reach Aurha's perch. She didn't realise they had come so far! Even though her body flew forward, her mind raced back to the awful scene with its sense of woodsmoke and gore, and poor Iissell and Khrath and Rhehala lying torn upon the ground.

A form was growing on the horizon; her mother. The cries of her young had reached her even so far away, and the smell of blood borne on the wind unleashed the full fury of the adult dragon. Aurha flew unthinkingly, guided by that first instinct of Protection, Nature's first Law. The air was cleaved by the strokes of her strong wings, and none who encountered her would have stayed long in her path. Threha halted and hovered, waiting for her mother to reach her.

'Take me there,' was all the grim greeting the young green got.

* * *

When she saw the carnage and the smoking trees Aurha's rage knew no boundaries. She dived for the clearing, landing with a force that shook the ground. A roar was all the warning the humans got before a deadly wall of fire consumed them in seconds, and others were mowed down by a long cut of the tail. One was standing stupefied over the body of Drethse, its pike still lodged in her son's skull. She took him up in her jaws, severing the Rheshrah's pact as she crushed his bones.

But now they swarmed over her too, casting ropes on either side of her body and tightening them so she was forced to crouch and could only move her neck. For every one she killed there was always another to take his place.

The archers fired again, and found their mark. A great stinging pain struck Aurha's skull as her vision went dark. They had blinded her. But not before she saw the man who led them.

Freyne.

The bonds snapped like reeds as she lunged for his voice. He was the one who had brought this upon her family. He would _pay_. She stumbled. An axe had hacked at her foreleg. A brush of her tail sent the man into a tree to move no more. Freyne was so close; she could hear his heart beating. One last gush of fire and he would be dead.

A scream from above. Threha's wings had been snared by one of the weighted nets and she came down awkwardly on her neck, but not before the archers burned. Aurha turned towards the sound of her last living daughter, and in the moment of exposing her neck, Freyne's last soldier struck. The drakka's cry was barbled and pained, the young man died instantly as her claws stabbed through his mail as easily as butter.

The dragon was still alive! Freyne heard then a sound to chill his heart: a dragon calling to its mate. If he stayed, he would die, and there was nobody left to dispute that he had dealt the deathblow to the huge green. He spurred his all too willing horse away from the scene, riding hard for the castle.

As soon as he smelt the scar of woodsmoke Hanorh knew something was wrong. He dropped the aurochs he had been carrying and headed for the source of the scent. It soon became mingled with blood. A desperate cry to Aurha went unanswered, but it was her blood he had smelled, and that of his hatchlings and a good many men.

The sight that met his eyes in the clearing almost stopped his heart. Iissell, Khrath, Drethse, Rhehala, and Threha all dead, their bodies broken against each other. There was no sign of the two eldest, but how could any of them have survived such an attack? The saddest thing was the sight of his mate, his beautiful, wild-hearted mate, her scales chipped an bloody across her flanks, her eyes weeping between punctured slits and her once wide wings in tatters. Ragged breaths still gurgled from her throat.

'Hanorh? Is that – you?' she panted.

'Yes, my love, I am here,' the copper replied, settling down beside the green to lend her his warmth and strength.

'They're all dead,' she sobbed. 'All broken and bleeding.' Hanorh soothed her as best he could. 'But we should be – proud. When I arrived, there were very few left.'

'Hush now, save your strength,' the drake murmured, licking at a deep gash in the muscle of her shoulder. She would never fly again, he half realised. Too fully acknowledge it would have been too painful.

'For what?' came his mate's answer, as she drifted into a half consciousness. Still she lived and suffered. Hanorh wants so many times that day to simply close his jaws on his mate's skull and end it, but even as her lifeblood soaked into the earth, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Finally, night swept along the sky and dusk deepened to twilight. Aurha awoke with a cough.

'Is it night?' she asked.

'It is.'

'I remember – in the north, winters used to be night. Always.' A smile cracked on her lips, blood choked through her teeth. 'There was no sun. And the stars used to shine so brightly, they were like white fires against the dark.' Another gurgle coughed along her gullet, frothing from lungs choked with fluid. 'Hanorh?'

'Yes my love?' the drake asked, trying to keep the sobs out of his voice.

'I cannot see,' she whispered. 'Are the stars shining tonight?'

Hanorh's heart broke. 'As brightly as I have ever seen them, my love. They welcome you.' He felt the final breath released, and was ended. His mate's form dissolved into stardust, brilliant and gold. A dragon's life essence. Around the clearing, the bodies of his children rose likewise, and joined with their mother. To Hanorh it seemed like she nuzzled them closer before leading them away on a path that flew higher than he could ever go; into the eye of the moon and beyond. His mate would finally get to touch it.

* * *

This was never going to be a happy ending, I warned you


	15. Half My Heart

In the darkness Hanorh's suffering was easier. He could pretend that the mournful bellow of his voice were the voices of other dragons as they echoed off the cave walls, or remember better times when his mate had still breathed and he had sung her asleep. It had been sixteen years now, and still her name came only as a hiss of pain to his lips and in his mind; her blood still dried on his scales, though the last of it had washed off years ago.

'Lord! Great one! Your song is sad!' A human voice interrupted his own, one that he knew and half hated, but he repressed a growl. It was only by the grace of the gods that she had been spared in the cataclysm birthed by his fire and fury. First there had been the soldiers who had escaped. They lay easy and unwatchful on open ground, complacent in the belief that there were no more dragons to slay. The copper had made sure they all burned. But then Hanorh's vengeance was insatiable, and the scent of Freyne clung acridly in his nostrils as he followed the trail back to the keep. There it was not only the castle that felt his fire, but also the homes around it, consuming innocents, women and children, and the dragon was without remorse. After all, his entire family had been taken from him, why should not the men suffer equally?

'Are the stars shining tonight?' he asked distantly. The stars were where his love resided now, and beyond his reach after the slaughter he had committed. Sharply did the last image of his mate come to him, burning.

'No,' called the sad voice of the queen. 'No bright souls glitter in this darkness.' They were taken from me, the copper thought bitterly, all of them.

He heard shuffling and scraping, and curiosity overcame the sudden whim to chase them all out of the cave. With heavy, slow footsteps designed to impress the men with their own insignificance, the drake came from the black depths of his cavern to survey his visitors.

'Aislinn, daughter of the Celts,' he greeted cordially enough.

'Whose people loved your kind and called you friend,' she replied earnestly. They were all dead too, slain by those of the new religion as an example of those who would not follow. All the years he had spent in trying to learn more about humans had only shown him how much he still did not understand. No other creature waged war on others of their kind for such unimportant reasons.

Hanorh looked down at the trembling, gasping youth on the litter. The seed of the dragonslayer, brazen with the sign of his house across his chest. It had been a black boar in the first years of his reign, but the slaughtered green dragon was the shield above his lintel when the copper had burned it down.

'The King's son; cruel and full of trickery.' There was little difference between the generations. 'Is this why you've come dragon slayer's wife!' he demanded.

'Dragonslayer's widow,' was the retort. She seemed more angry than grieved. 'This boy is not his father,' she insisted. 'This knight here is his mentor; he has taught him the Old Code.'

For the first time the copper looked at the tall knight clad in black that stood at the side of the queen. There was something to him that showed his goodness, but good intentions were not enough to change Nature.

'I need your help.'

The drake watched as Aislinn pulled back the red cloak and stained shirt worn by the prince, thoughts coalescing in his head. When she removed the pad covering the wound, Hanorh felt oddly hollow.

'The wound is deep; you know what you ask.' It was the most ancient of all wisdom. The boy's heart was evil, but perhaps the purity of a dragon's soul could succeed where a man's tutelage had failed. It would give the people a better life than that they had been living under the boy's father. Dragon and man would be united once more in brotherhood. And Rheshrah. His soul would be free, and he would be with his love again. This could be his only chance at redemption.

'I will teach him your ways. He will grow in your grace, he will grow just and good! I swear!' Aislinn's promises were desperate, made by a mother over her dying son, and once again the copper was reminded of that last day of carnage and the sound of his mate's final shuddering breath among her fallen children.

'No, the boy must swear. Give me your sword knight.' There was no retreating now.

'Your sword!' Aislinn prompted. The man stood stupefied at being addressed by a dragon directly.

With the blade in his hand, Hanorh felt keenly the ebbing of the young man's life.

'Don't be afraid,' Aislinn murmured. 'He can save you.'

'Now listen to me, boy,' Hanorh growled, shaking off the thoughts about the fragility of life. 'Swear that your father's bloodlust and tyranny died with him. Swear that you will live and rule with mercy, come to me and learn the once ways –' the copper felt the fear pulse in the boy's heart, his blackness shrinking from the power of his voice. 'Now swear!' Compulsion wracked the prince's frame, fuelled by the memory of what had been and the knowledge that now things could change.

'I swear,' the boy gasped. It was his last. Hanorh felt no remorse.

'Einon. Einon!' The knight's eyes filled with anger. 'He's dead!' the sword was yanked away with a shriek of sparks that left a scar down the blade.

'Peace, Knight of the Old Code,' the drake commanded. For his love and his soul he would bring the boy back to life. There was only this hope left. 'Witness the wonders of an ancient glory.'

And it was done. His fate lay now in the hands of a youth corrupted by the tyranny of his father and arrogant of his own worth. If his heart could not purify these weaknesses, then all hope would turn to despair. He would never see Aurha again.

'Live, and remember your oath.'


End file.
